


A Story About Love

by Schnozzbun



Category: LISA (Video Games)
Genre: Additional Tags To Be Added as Fic Updates, Buddy Armstrong Did Nothing Wrong, Buuut Rando and Buddy have each other, Canon Compliant until it's not, Canon Divergent, Child Abuse, Childhood Trauma, Drug Addiction, Enemies to Siblings, Eye Trauma, Fix-It of Sorts, I get this is LISA and we know what we're in for, Implications of Paedophilia, Isolation, Just figure I'd cover my bases so non-fans don't get a nasty shock, Misogyny, Missing Scenes, Other, Paedophilia, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Underage Drug Use, domestic abuse, implications of pseudo-incest, threats of rape
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:54:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27991104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schnozzbun/pseuds/Schnozzbun
Summary: Nothing brings siblings together like a bad father. But is it enough for a daughter who craves her freedom and a son who yearns for connection to bond over? The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and one wrong move could destroy not just their budding trust, but humanity’s last chance at redemption.A very canon-divergent replotting/fix-it of LISA the Joyful that’s one-third restructured plot elements, one-third expanded character interactions, and one-third personal indulgence.
Relationships: Buddy Armstrong & Rando
Comments: 32
Kudos: 57





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _“Love: No matter what, all good stories have to have love in some way. Whether it's good or bad intentions, character motivations must be based in love." —Austin Jorgensen_

_“Who are you? This is my spot.”_

_“...This is a tree. You can’t own a tree.”_

_“I come here all the time and I’ve never seen anyone until you, so go away, it’s_ mine.”

_“Hey OW—! Don’t scratch— FINE!... Weren’t you at St Rita’s last week?”_

_“...Whatever, keep it. Everything here’s shit anyway.”_

_“Wait, wait! What’s your name?”_

* * *

“Alright, Buddy,” Cheeks said, “the next letter is H. H stands for, uh… Hippo.” He reached across the table for the right letters, then stopped. “Wait, how many P’s is that?”

“Two. Four if it’s the long way,” said Rick. “H also stands for horse, genius. Girls _like_ horses. As if she’d know what a hippo is.”

“Not like she’s seen a horse either,” Cheeks muttered.

“She’s had horse jerky, hasn’t she?”

Sticky sighed. “Guys…”

The four of them sat around a wooden board elevated on a hollow tire. On the makeshift table were twenty-six piles of torn-out letters in various fonts, sizes, and colors. The sum of human language lay in shredded confetti that shivered whenever anyone breathed too closely to it. Buddy would have been forgiven to think that the letter X was extremely prevalent in the English language—if she was bothering to pay attention that is. 

She was busy humming under her breath as she arranged a pile of abducted letters into a group of parallel lines.

Sticky set down the bottle he’d been cradling and leaned over the table. “What’re you making there, Bud?”

“It’s us!” Buddy beamed. She pointed out each column. “Uncle Cheeks, Uncle Rick—that one’s you, Uncle Sticky—this one’s me, and that’s Brad.”

There sat one tiny three-letter line swaddled by four taller lines on both sides. Buddy had used letter O’s for the heads, capital A’s for the bodies with colors that corresponded with the cloth of their shawls, and folded capital H’s for legs. 

“Hey, that’s really cute!” Cheeks leaned his chin in his hands and grinned at the other two. “She sure is smart.”

“Buddy, sweetie, we agreed on this, remember?” Rick started to reach toward her group of letters—hesitating as he saw the beginning of a pout on her face. “You can do crafts _after_ we finish spelling.”

Sticky rubbed a crick in his neck. “Give it a rest, Rick. Maybe she’s still too young for this.”

“Oh, so I’m just wasting my time then?” Rick said. “She’s seven now. That’s when _we_ were learning how to spell stuff, right?”

“Didn’t we start at six?” Cheeks said.

“Well, Christ! That means we’re already a whole year behind!” Rick reached for something under the table. “Buddy, sit down with me.” He scooted from his seat and beckoned her over. Buddy eagerly followed.

Rick had a bottle in one hand and a clay tablet sided with slabs of salvaged wood in the other. He poured brackish water from the bottle on the tablet’s surface. 

Buddy’s eyes glimmered. It was the same tablet Rick used when he’d first taught her the alphabet. The tablet lived upstairs due to repeated incidents of Buddy stealing it and using all their water to draw until her fingers were cramped and pruny. Since then, Rick had come up with the elegant solution of cutting letters from magazines.

Rick held the tablet above his knee. “Say the letters as I spell them,” he said.

Buddy read the letters out loud as Rick dragged his finger across the wet clay. H-O-R-S-E. 

“Horse,” Buddy finished.

“What happened to the ‘nothing that doesn’t exist’ rule?” Sticky said. Buddy’s uncles had taken turns arranging letters. So far the middle of the table had a list of words spelling Art, Ball, Clay, Dirt, Eye, Flint and Gaywood.

“She has to learn eventually,” Rick countered. “We’ll do History a bit early today,” he told Buddy. “Horses are— well, were, mammals that people used to transport things with or just to ride on.” He turned the tablet around and began drawing vigorously. “And, you know, girls really liked them! You could buy these little horse toys and braid their hair— look!”

Rick flipped the tablet. Buddy wasn’t sure what she was looking at. She scrutinized the depiction of a slanted wedge smushed to a wonky rectangle. It was propped up by four spindly stilts, had two beaked horns on its head, and prehistoric spines protruding from its neck.

Reading her confusion, Rick reached into his pocket and held out a strip of jerky. “They’re how we got these, see?”

Buddy’s brow furrowed as her gaze moved between the strip of dried meat and the spiked creature etched in clay. It started here—the slow edging towards the precipice of something Buddy didn’t have the words for. The moment when the pit at the base of her stomach had first opened its hollow little mouth. 

“What about hippos?” Buddy said. “What did they look like?”

Cheeks brightened. “Ooh! I can draw one!” He jumped from his seat and appeared next to Rick, who scowled at the ceiling as he passed Cheeks the tablet.

Cheeks wiped the tablet clean. “So hippos were these huge animals that lived in swamps.”

“What’s a swamp?” Buddy asked.

“It’s like a big stinky lake. They loved it there. They had tough skin so everyone knew not to mess with them. And they could walk on land or swim underwater and go wherever they wanted.”

Buddy’s eyes got very wide. “Were they like Jaws?”

“Nah, they were nice I’m pretty sure.”

Buddy propped her chin in her hands as she watched Cheeks doodle a round creature with two cute little ears, a pair of button eyes, and a wide smile.

“Wow, you should teach Uncle Rick how to draw better,” Buddy said.

Sticky snorted behind his hand. Rick muttered darkly as he returned to the table.

“Oh!” Cheeks snapped his clay-covered fingers. “Nearly forgot, they had _massive_ teeth.” He drew a set of squares peeking out of the hippo’s mouth and two large tusks.

“What did they eat?” Buddy said.

A solemn look came over Cheeks's face. “Oh, only one thing...”

 _“Cheeks,_ don’t you dare,” Rick warned.

“They ate LITTLE GIRLS!” Cheeks jumped to his feet and raised his arms into claws.

“NOOOOO! YOU SAID THEY WEREN’T LIKE JAWS!” Buddy leapt into the air and ran.

Rick rubbed his eyes as the two chased each other around the table. “You’re going to give her nightmares again...”

Sticky took a swig from his bottle and watched the show.

Buddy's heart thumped in dizzy exhilaration. She never got to run like this. Stretching her legs and digging her bare feet against the packed earth felt like flying—like she could go anywhere. Like maybe if she built up enough speed and aimed towards the hut’s open doorway she could—

“Gotcha!” 

Buddy was scooped up from under her armpits and swung into the air. 

“Uh-oh! You know what happens next!” 

Buddy let out a terrific squeal as Cheeks plopped the two of them onto the floor and ravaged her belly with tickles.

“Aaaand now we’re off track.” Rick’s chin plonked onto the table. He sighed, scattering letters everywhere. 

“Let her live a little.” Sticky swirled the contents of his bottle. “Also, it’s three P’s.”

Rick blinked. “What?”

“Hippopotamus. It has three P’s.” 

Rick smiled wanly. “Eat shit.” He returned to Buddy and Cheeks, pursing his lips. “They better stop that before Brad gets here.”

Sticky narrowed his eyes. “You have a filthy mind.” 

Rick flushed. _“I’m being serious._ You _know_ how he gets.”

Cheeks giggled as Buddy shrieked with laughter. She folded inwards, trying to protect every vulnerable crevice of her body. “Stoooop! Enough, enough!”

 _“Uh-oh, uh-oh!”_ Cheeks sing-songed. “Whatcha gonna do, Buddy? How’re you gonna get outta this one?” 

She unleashed a kick straight into Cheeks's stomach. 

Cheeks's eyes bulged. He dropped Buddy, wheezed, and pressed his forehead to the dirt floor. _“No fair,”_ he gasped. _“No kicking uncles.”_

Buddy jumped to her feet and skipped away from Cheeks's heaving figure. “That’s what you get!” She swung her hands in a cool chopping motion as she walked backwards. “That’s what we call Armstrong Sty—”

Her back hit something. She looked over her shoulder. 

Brad.

Buddy’s neck prickled with sweat. Rick jerked upright like the table had zapped him. Cheeks lifted himself from the ground, clutching his sore stomach. Sticky remained in place. 

“Brad!” Rick said. “Where have you been? We haven’t seen you since last night.”

Brad wasn’t looking at him.

“Why are you up here?” Brad rumbled.

Buddy shrank into her shoulders. “Uncle Rick said…” 

Rick interjected, “We agreed we’d teach her spelling today, remember? The table is up here so we just thought—”

“Buddy,” Brad said. “Go to your room.” His words weighed like lead ingots.

Buddy turned to the far side of the hut. She rolled back a corner of carpet to reveal a circle in the dirt. She climbed down the rope tied to a stake under the mouth of the hole, dropped to the ground, and clutched her knees to her chest.

“Sorry, Brad,” she heard Cheeks say. They never realized how easy it was to eavesdrop. “We just thought she’d like having her lessons upstairs for once.” 

“What the hell...?” Brad said. He sounded farther away. There was a riffling of paper being flipped-through by a calloused thumb. “Have you lost your minds? We need to trade these for _food.”_

“They’re only from the ads!” Rick said. “And like anyone reads those things for the words. Do you want your kid to be illiterate?”

“Did you hear the racket you were making?” Brad let the question hang in the air. “Me and every fucked up jackass out there could hear screaming. I nearly killed myself climbing up here. Half expected to see all three of you dead, everything stolen, and Buddy _being—”_

BANG! Wood cracked and splintered, followed by the sound of paper flakes fluttering down in susurrating whispers. A pause, then:

“Brad, have you been doing Joy again?” Sticky said.

Silence.

“You were out for a while.”

Buddy didn’t hear what happened next because she wasn’t there. She possessed a talent for sinking into a pinwheel of explosive colors where the layers of brown and black would melt away and she’d be somewhere else. A place where the wind was fresh and sang as it combed her hair, where soft purple fields cushioned her feet as she sprinted towards the horizon, where the sky was a blue blanket flecked with kingdoms of fluffy golden clouds she could soar into. It was somewhere that was hers and hers alone.

But she could never stay long enough. The cavernous dirt walls always lurked at the edges of her mind. No matter how many drawings she pinned up she knew the layers of subterranean earth would always be there, just underneath. The longer she stayed down here the smaller the room got. 

It felt bigger with other people though.

Buddy Armstrong lived with her three uncles and Brad. The four took turns keeping her company in her room and cuddling her at night. 

When Uncle Rick looked after her he fretted like it was his job. There was always a tiny wrinkle of worry on his brow. Armed with a rusty pair of scissors, he pored over piles of magazines—magazines Buddy was forbidden from looking at—and carefully plucked out words and numbers to taxidermy sentences together and teach arithmetic. Rick insisted he was the most qualified to teach Buddy because he’d been to a place called College. Her uncles would roll their eyes at that, and Buddy learned to do the same, but just for show. Buddy’s mind was starved for things to do. She’d eat up the different exercises like they were games. She swam in the praise and encouraging pats on the head Rick doled out whenever she figured out a sum, properly sounded out a sentence, or remembered the funny names of men—always men—who did something important years ago then died. 

Uncle Cheeks was a ball of fun. Buddy loved playing movies with him. What began as half-remembered bedtime stories became scenarios they would play and reenact over and over again, relics of humanity they would bring to life in her very own room. Her favorite movies were _Peter Pan, Indiana Jones,_ and _Star Wars._ Buddy was always the hero, Cheeks made for an excellent villain, and the supporting roles were played by Brad and the remaining uncles. Cheeks was an expert in monologue and dying dramatically. “Curse you, Peter Pan!” he’d wail as Buddy wrestled him to the ground and won. Buddy didn’t mind always playing the boys parts like Peter or Indie. Girls in movies were always boring because they didn’t do anything. Buddy liked playing Luke best. Rick was always a good sport about playing Leia, Sticky played Han, and Brad played obstacles that ideally didn’t have to move much, like a large chasm or a sarlacc pit. Sticky, Rick, and Brad got tired of playing as she got older, but Cheeks was always game. That’s why he was her favorite.

Uncle Sticky was the most relaxed. Cheeks may have been the one in charge of recounting movies, but Sticky was by far the best storyteller. He wove tales about the hijinxes her uncles and Brad got up to as young boys. He gave details about their lives before the Flash—Rick’s disastrous business investments, Cheeks’s terrible luck with women, Brad’s dilapidated dojo. She’d beg him to tell the same ones. The rhythm and cadence of his words settled in her mind like the familiar chorus of a song. He always knew how to make everything so funny, sharing memories cushioned by time that could be thrown around with the impact of soft pillows. As she grew older Sticky started telling her new stories, giving her little insights. Like why Rick would sometimes call her Junior by accident then act all withdrawn and sullen for the rest of the day, or why Cheeks adamantly refused to leave the hut at night-time. When she asked about Brad, Sticky would say the same thing: “When you’re older, kiddo. How about I tell you something about me this time? Here’s a story about what car mufflers were, and why you shouldn’t stick stuff in them on the same day you have a court date.” Those moments were nice, Buddy leaning on Sticky as he gestured with one hand and stroked her hair with the other. 

And then there was Brad.

Brad was a complicated subject. Asking about him led to different answers.

“He means well, you know,” Cheeks would say.

“He could do better,” Rick would decide.

Sticky would gracefully change the subject.

Buddy understood there was something essentially different about Brad. It was in his stride, in his measured tone, in the way her three uncles automatically swivelled their heads towards him whenever there was a decision to be made. Buddy had never been told that Brad was in charge because it didn’t need to be said. There was something brutal and impenetrable about him that carried a certain weight in this world. A weight that made him indispensable to their survival in a way he never flaunted but she was sure her uncles knew quietly, unanimously.

Brad had also been acting strange lately. Distant. Glazed. You had to call his name twice for him to pay attention to you sometimes, like his ears had gone numb. 

It was Brad’s turn to look after her tonight. 

Buddy hadn’t seen anyone since she’d been sent underground that afternoon. She’d been alone for hours. 

Buddy’s chin rested on her knees as she watched Brad finally climb down the rope.

“Am I in trouble?” Buddy said.

Brad glanced up. His eyes took a moment to focus, like he was surprised to see her there. “No. No, it’s fine. I talked to your uncles. It’s fine now.”

“Are they in trouble?”

Brad took a moment. “Your uncles will be fine.” 

He sat across from Buddy. “Let’s save each other the lecture—you know why what happened today was wrong, right?”

She nodded slowly.

“Can you say it? I just want to make sure.”

Buddy drew a small line on the dirt with her finger. “Because I’m one of the only kids left… and it’s very dangerous outside for kids…”

“And?”

Buddy dug a deep groove in the ground until it hurt. “And because I’m a girl.” 

“The _last_ girl,” Brad said. “The world out there… It’s a cesspit. You’re very lucky, Buddy. Not everyone can live with this kind of safety.”

 _Safety._ The word tasted like bile on her tongue. Safety meant living every d ay in a hole. Safety meant having nothing to do besides reorganizing her pencils and crayons when there was no paper left to draw with, staring at the bottle lamp until her eyes flashed with red spots, or memorizing every indentation in the wall. Safety was being told by her dad who she wasn’t allowed to call Dad that he didn’t _want_ to lecture her—but was lecturing her anyway.

“It’s been a big day,” Brad said. “Could you blow out the lamp?”

Buddy got to her feet and did so, even though she wasn’t tired and her legs were buzzing from inactivity because no one had checked on her all day.

Buddy cupped her hand around the little flame and blew out the light. She spread herself on her normal spot in the center of the room and waited for Brad to lie next to her.

She heard the familiar shuffling of his poncho and waited. And waited. And waited.

Buddy raised herself up and saw Brad’s dark shape on the other side of the room, back against the wall, far away from her.

Buddy crawled over to him. She reached a hand towards his knee and started to climb into his chest. Brad gently picked her up, but placed her on the floor again.

“I’m sleeping here tonight,” Brad said. “You sleep over there.”

Buddy went quiet as a slow horror engulfed her. Her eyes began to sting. “You said I wasn’t in trouble.”

“You’re not.”

Hot tears spilled down her cheeks. _“I’m sorry,”_ she wailed. _“I’m sorry for going upstairs, I promise I won’t do it again. Please don’t leave me alone.”_

“Buddy…” Brad intoned.

_“Brad no please no I’m scared of sleeping alone I don’t want to sleep by myself I’m sorry!”_

“Buddy!” Brad grabbed her shoulders. His grip shocked her into silence. “I’ve been planning this for a while.” He loosened his hands. “This can’t go on forever. It’ll be good for you... I don’t think you should sleep next to your uncles anymore either.”

 _“What?”_ her voice cracked.

“You’re a growing girl," he said. "You’re getting too old.”

“But why?” she blubbered. “I don’t understand. What did I do?”

“Buddy,” he spoke in a voice like soft, encroaching thunder, “don’t make me say it again.” 

Buddy froze. She swallowed the hot painful ball in her throat and forced her breathing to slow.

Brad let out a long exhale. “You’ll never get anything acting like that. When I’ve said something, I’ve said it. No more questions.” Brad crossed his arms beneath his poncho and leaned against the wall. “Goodnight, Buddy.” 

Dismissed, Buddy padded over to the center of the room. Brad hadn’t always been like this. She remembered being wrapped in his arms, falling asleep swaddled in his poncho, listening to him hum to her as she drifted off against the gentle strength of his chest.

Now she was curled into a little ball, trying to breathe past the wet knot strangling her throat. She closed her eyes and waited for sleep.

As the days wore on, Buddy noticed her uncles were acting strange too. Rick’s praise during lessons became purely verbal, Cheeks complained he was too tired to play movies and suggested they draw instead, and Sticky sat across from her rather than beside her when he told her stories. They all kept their distance like she was sick with something. 

Buddy got the acute sense that she was being punished. Brad must have gotten her uncles into some kind of ‘No Touch’ policy because she’d done something wrong. She determined that if she could model her best behaviour things would go back to normal. She didn’t complain when there wasn’t enough to eat. She didn’t whine that her favorite crayons were turning into blunt nubs. She fought the urge to yell, groan or scream whenever she was bored out of her mind. 

But nothing changed. No one would touch her. 

She started developing new habits—biting her nails, masticating her hair, gnawing the collar of the off-white tank top she’d worn since she could walk. She chewed hoping that enough contemplation would reveal the truth of what she’d done wrong. Instead, Rick chastised the habit, saying it wasn’t very ladylike.

One day—she could only assume it was day; the only evidence of time passing down here were the crawling paths of beetles and memorable bowel movements—Buddy lay splayed on the ground, rolling a pencil back and forth across the dirt. Cheeks was sitting next to her. 

“So uhh… what do you want to do, dude?” 

“Dunno…” she mumbled.

“We could draw… I think Sticky found some more paper the other day.”

“Mrmph,” Buddy groaned. She shifted her foot up and down by the ankle. She wanted to try something.

“Are you still feeling kinda sick?” he said. “Should I call Brad?” One of Buddy’s plans to gain attention had involved complaining about stomach aches. She’d hoped everyone would fawn over her like when she got sick as a toddler. Instead, all she got was close supervision from Brad, as if he thought whatever was wrong with her could be cured by intense glaring.

“No,” she drawled, looking from the corner of her eye. She experimentally moved her foot to Cheeks's knee. His leg instinctively flinched back. 

“Why did you do that?” she snapped.

Cheeks cringed. “What do you mean?” he tried to say impassively. Tried. 

Buddy got up to her little feet. Looked at him. Stared.

Cheeks shifted in his seat. “Are you sure you’re— _OOPH.”_

Buddy launched herself across the room and tackled Cheeks into a full-bodied hug.

Cheeks raised his hands in finger-curled panic. “Buddy, you can’t do that.”

“Why?” she said, face smothered in Cheeks's shawl. “Because I’m in trouble?”

“You’re not in trouble.”

“Then because you hate me?”

“It’s not allowed—” The words left his mouth before he could stop them. 

Being right could be such cold comfort.

“I knew it,” she said. “It’s because _he_ hates me.”

“It’s not like that. Brad just... doesn’t think it’s appropriate.”

Buddy didn’t know what that word meant. “That’s not fair.” 

“Buddy, please let go.”

She squeezed her arms tighter around Cheeks.

 _“Aw, kid._ C’mon.”

 _“Please.”_ Her voice was so small. She hated being tip-toed around like she was some pariah. She hated not knowing what she was being punished for. She hated sleeping by herself like a lone island in a black, swallowing sea. _“I already said I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to do.”_

Cheeks sighed. Slowly, he lowered his arms and hugged Buddy back.

That was when Brad came downstairs.

New rule: Buddy was no longer allowed to be alone with any of her uncles. Brad always had to be there, looming in the corner like a hulking gargoyle. Rick stumbled over his words during Buddy’s lessons, the spark fizzled out of her and Cheeks’s games, and Sticky would barely talk. He and Brad would just glare at each other, Buddy caught in the middle.

Her uncles came down less and less. They looked worn, tired. She supposed being visually interrogated at every move just wasn’t appealing to them. Even the conversations she would eavesdrop on from the bottom of the hole had vanished into stifled murmurs. She was sleeping by herself more and more. It was like they didn’t care enough to check on her.

Time slipped from her grasp. She used to measure it by whose turn it was to look after her, but without the usual rotation, days were blurring together like egg yolk. There wasn’t much to do other than breathe, eat, and sleep. This couldn’t be living, she thought. Surely this wasn’t what she had to look forward to for the rest of her life. 

Buddy was often alone, left to steep in her own listlessness and sorrow. While she was hungry for the moments when her loneliness would be broken by an uncle and Brad, sometimes the company only made things worse.

Like today. Rick had made an off-handed comment about needing to cut new words out of a magazine. The letters he had were becoming crumpled and faded. This made Brad bristle and say something about Rick being awfully eager to deface stuff that wasn’t his. 

Buddy stared at the ceiling. She puffed out air through her cheeks as she listened to the grown-ups bicker. They took the argument upstairs.

Left by herself, Buddy rolled onto her stomach and noticed something. In his haste to leave, Rick had left the offending magazine on the floor. 

A bored child is prone to mischief. And after a day’s lessons, Buddy was in the mood to do some of her own education. 

She opened the first page. 

Then the next. 

Then the next. 

Buddy knew a thing or two about women from her uncles, especially Rick. He saw it as important to her education that she “inherit an understanding about womanhood and female culture.” She knew women were nurturing, sweet, slim, pretty, didn’t slouch, didn’t eat their boogers, wore their hair long if they were respectable, and liked clothes. Well if that were true, Buddy couldn’t understand why these women weren’t wearing a single stitch between them. 

The pictures didn’t look candid. The subjects looked trapped, contorted into bizarre positions, squashed like bugs between gooey pressed pages. Who were these women? Who took these pictures? And why were they traded for food?

There it was. The chasm-like void in her gut. The emptiness deepened as she flipped each page with growing desperation. Surely _she_ wouldn’t turn into something like that—undergo grotesque pupation, grow tumorous bloats on her chest, mutate into an oily beast that stared with eyes wreathed in black blades and grinned with bloody red lips. 

She flung the magazine across the room. It fell like a struck bird. 

Buddy gripped her legs to her chest. Her mind was a knot she was too scared to untie. 

Spending hours underground by herself would leave Buddy Armstrong’s mind to wander into meandering bramble-filled paths. One of them was the suspicion she wasn’t human. 

What if Brad and her uncles had found her one day, some alien creature, and invented the existence of women as some elaborate kindness so she wouldn’t grow up thinking she was some kind of freak? If she _did_ have extraterrestrial origins, maybe that meant she was like that movie _E.T._ Cheeks told her about sometimes. That there was some homeplanet out there teeming with happy young girls just like her. She wasn’t sure if that made her happy or sad.

But now there was the alternative. Women were real, she was one, and the only surviving relic were these lumpy, twisted creatures. 

When would the transformation begin? Soon? Buddy was a growing girl after all. 

Then there was the way Brad looked at her—furtive glances she’d occasionally catch before he averted his eyes. She’d thought it was just general scorn caused by whatever esoteric way she had slighted him. But now she recognized it. Disgust.

It made terrible sense. Her tank top was getting small. Brad would chastise her whenever she raised her arms and the fabric rose above her belly button. It must’ve been why Brad forbade anyone from touching her. Why she’d been left down here—to moult into something monstrous.

Buddy forced herself to her feet and picked up the magazine from the floor. She carefully returned it to its spot like it had never been opened.

By the time Rick came back down, Buddy had pulled out a sheet of paper and crayons from the dresser and was occupying herself drawing. 

Rick inhaled as if about to speak, then froze. An odd look crossed his face when he saw the magazine on the ground. He bit his cheek as he looked over his shoulder at the hole above him, then back at her.

“Uh, hey, Buddy.” He inched forward. “I just... left this here.”

“I know. You can take it,” Buddy said without looking up. She was trying to color the sheet of paper entirely in brown. It was the longest crayon she owned. Each stroke was long and methodical, like she was trying to wash something clean.

Rick picked it up. He looked at it and then back at her. “Buddy, if there’s anything you want to talk about, I’m always—”

“Rick. You done?” Brad called. 

Rick and Buddy simultaneously winced at his voice.

“Just a sec!” he responded. He returned to Buddy. “Buddy, are you—

“You’re gonna get us in trouble,” Buddy said flatly. “Go.” 

Sufficiently cowed, Rick backpedalled and climbed out of the room. 

Buddy drew with increasing speed. The pressure from her crayon on the paper got harder and harder until it ripped a large tear through the center of the page. It was permanent and impossible to fix. 

Time smeared as Buddy was left more and more alone in the hole. Days didn’t feel like they moved in a straight line, but like looping swirls that blotted and bled into each other. There was a noticeable impression in the earth marking where she would pace back and forth like a dead-eyed animal circling its cage. Her mind had become a pantheon of imagination. It hosted expansions to stories from Cheeks’s movies with characters of her own creation. The practice was less an idle pass-time and more in the vein of a drowning victim clinging to a life preserver for any sense of relief from being conscious. Her haze was diffused whenever an uncle came down to bring her food. It was a short enough span of time Brad deemed acceptable for her uncles to be alone with her.

“You know,” Sticky mumbled one day, “Cheeks says you’re gonna be turning ten soon.”

Ten was a big number. It required two hands to count. She’d have to start holding up her toes if she wanted to show off her age. 

While each conscious moment was only mind-numbing repetition, birthdays were breaks. They were tactile measures of time, a guarantee that something would _happen._ Each year incorporated the same ritual of well wishes and scratching off her height on the side of the dresser. There were four marks so far—her tenth birthday would be the fifth. While it was gratifying to see how much taller she’d gotten, since Brad’s new rules and the long stretches of solitude, the marks on the dresser felt like they were tallying something much more sinister. 

Grim thought aside, Buddy kept herself busy theorising what gift she would be getting this year. Brad had been grumbling for weeks (what she was _sure_ was weeks) about her needing new clothes. And the uncles had an odd twinkle in their eye whenever they came into her room, like they were on the verge of sharing a joke they were quite pleased with. 

“C’mon, what is it?” she’d ask each one on their different days. “What am I getting? _Tell meeee.”_

“I am sworn to silence,” Sticky said.

“Nuh-uh. You’re not getting anything out of me.” Cheeks winked.

Only Rick answered. “All I can say is that it’ll be in a color you’ll really like,” he chimed.

Buddy was snapped out of her ennui. Sleep couldn’t come to her soon enough to make the days go faster. 

Her uncles had to know. It was obvious from all the pictures of the sky on her wall, the fact her blue crayons and pencils were shortened into stubs, or—back when she was allowed upstairs and Brad wasn’t home—how she’d lie flat on the ground and peek out the window to gaze at the wash of blue sky. She’d stare transfixed, hoping for a wisp of cloud to float by, maybe even a bird. Someday, when she was old enough to go outside, she wanted to see how far that blue went. 

She imagined wearing it. She pictured a grand flowing thing. Bright, light-blue dappled with white. Long, wing-like sleeves she could weave patterns in the air with when she flapped her arms and spun.

The morning arrived. Brad and her uncles all climbed down into her room as Buddy jumped up and down from excitement.

“Someone’s eager,” Sticky chuckled.

“Close your eyes!” Cheeks said.

“And hold your hands out,” Rick said. “No peeking!” 

Buddy did so, hands extended eagerly. She felt a square of fabric drop into her hands.

“Happy birthday, Buddy!” her uncles said in unison.

Buddy opened her eyes. She wasn’t sure what she was looking at.

“It’s pink!” Rick prompted. As if that would help anything.

The merriment in the air deflated like wind out of a balloon.

Rick didn’t know what to do with his hands. “It’s a girl’s color…” 

Buddy stared at the folded poncho. It was eyeball pink, gum pink, tongue pink. The color of raw flayed flesh, of slimy saliva-covered muscle. The absence in her gut yawned wide.

She glanced up. They were looking at her so expectantly. She understood there was a right and wrong answer. She understood that Brad and her uncles must have worked very hard to make this for her. She understood that the atmosphere for the whole day would be decided by her reaction. 

Buddy’s hands tightened around the fabric. Anger pounded in her head at the searing injustice of it all. She was a girl. This was a girl’s color and she was _supposed_ to like it. She was a girl and she was _supposed_ to like extinct, four-legged mammals she had never seen. She was a girl and she was _supposed_ to stay underground forever and die from gratitude for being kept so safe.

She thought they knew her. She was their niece. But it was like she was covered in an opaque membrane where she was seen as Girl before she was seen as Buddy.

Rage bubbled and seethed inside her because she finally understood.

Buddy Armstrong would never have a choice. 

Buddy swallowed the inferno. Resigned, she unfolded the poncho and slipped it over her head. It was comfortable enough. It covered her all the way to her ankles.

“You’ll grow into it,” Sticky said.

“You look real cute, too!” Cheeks said before coughing into his fist as he caught a vicious side-eye from Brad. “A-Adorable. I meant adorable.”

“Do you like it, Buddy?” Brad murmured. He stood a bit behind the uncles, fidgeting his hands. 

Buddy looked right back. She was sure this was all Brad’s doing.

“Yes,” Buddy managed. “Thank you.”

Brad nodded. Her uncles sagged with relief.

Surprisingly, the ensuing birthday party was quite nice. Brad and the uncles had scrounged up a modest pile of potato chip bags and soda cans for a sweet and salty feast. When that was done, all attention was on her. Buddy tucked away any complex feelings to fully take advantage of having everyone in the same room for once. Buddy pulled out her oft neglected make-up bag and put it to good use. Her height was marked on the dresser. They played movies for the first time in ages, carrying out the herculean task of recreating the entire Star Wars trilogy in one afternoon. She couldn’t remember enjoying herself so much. Cheeks hammed it up, Rick was rescued, and Sticky helped. Brad stayed in the background, but Buddy noticed that his brow wasn’t as furrowed as usual. He seemed at peace about something. As they were starting to wind down, Cheeks pulled out a bottle of onion vodka. Buddy didn’t like the taste, but it made her feel awfully grown up to have drunk some. Brad and the uncles enjoyed it much more than she did. After enough pleading, Brad was loose enough to agree that, just for tonight, they could all sleep in Buddy’s room. _Separately,_ he emphasized.

Buddy kneaded the poncho fabric between her fingers as she settled into the night. It was comforting hearing the four sets of lungs calmly breathing around her. She didn’t mind the dark; she was raised in it. Her real fear was that each time her uncles and Brad climbed the rope out of her room, it would be the last time she’d ever see them again. How long would it take before she realized they were gone? The sound of light snoring gave her the solace that for one night she could be sure she wasn’t alone.

Still, it wasn’t enough to distract her from the urchin of fury broiling in her stomach. It kept pricking her, demanding attention. 

She balled the end of her poncho into her fist There was a comfort in being privately upset, awash in her own disappointment. Who decided pink was a girl’s color? If she really was the last woman on earth shouldn’t she have a say of which colors she was meant to like? Was she just fated to sit here forever, like those contorted women trapped in magazines? What _was_ she?

She felt a light tap on her shoulder.

Buddy flinched awake. Sticky was lying across from her with a finger to his lips. 

“Hey Buddy,” he whispered, barely audible. 

“Hi,” she whispered back.

“It’s been a while.”

“Yep.”

Buddy was instinctively aware of how close Brad was. He was barely a yard away from her, a huge brown mass of cloth and hair that rose and fell as he breathed. She could tell by the clipped words and the shallowness of his breathing that Sticky was aware of it too.

“What is it?” Buddy said.

“Just wanted to check on you,” he said. “How are you?”

“I’m okay. I’m ten, I guess.”

“Are you happy here?”

The question was as subtle as a boulder crashing into a lake. It felt like Sticky had just plucked something private and blinding out of her mind and dropped it right in front of them. 

Buddy pretended not to understand. “Today was fun. I’m happy being with you right now.”

“But are you happy _here?_ In _this place,_ with Brad?”

Buddy fell silent. She opened her mouth but couldn’t make any words. Brad’s breathing roared in her ears. He was too close. 

Her heart hammered in her chest. Achingly slow, she rose to her hands and knees and crawled across the ground until she was above Sticky’s face. She was so close she could smell the whiff of liquor and expired make-up on him. He didn’t move. She lowered her face and surprised herself at the sharp simplicity of the words which poured from her mouth into his ear.

“No. I hate it here. I love you all but I hate being by myself alone. I feel like I’m crazy. I feel like I’m going to die. Sometimes I can’t tell when I’m awake or asleep. I want to leave.” 

Buddy’s throat closed. A grasping hand in her conscience forbade her from saying anything more. She felt light-headed with relief and terror. She didn’t know what would happen now. Didn’t she know better? Wasn’t today proof enough that wishing for something was just an invitation for disappointment? _What if Brad had heard?_

But she trusted Sticky. He didn’t goof off like Cheeks or fussed like Rick. And most importantly, he wouldn’t crack under Brad. It was worth the fear of getting into trouble if it meant talking about how she felt. It made it feel real. It made _her_ feel real. If she couldn’t confide in Sticky, she had nothing left.

Sticky remained still as Buddy crawled back to her spot. Once she did, he rubbed his hand over his face and breathed out. “Okay, Bud... Okay, okay.” From the setness of his jaw, it looked like he’d made a decision. He inched closer to Buddy.

“There’s a man out there called Rando,” he whispered. “He’s powerful. Lives very far away. It would be a dangerous trip, but if we got his help you wouldn’t live underground anymore. The four of us could be safe there.”

 _The four of us._ Buddy realized she didn’t feel any objection to that at all. It felt obvious. As obvious as the reason they were whispering to each other. 

“Do you know him?” she asked.

“No, never met him. Only important people talk to him but, if he knew about you, Buddy, he’d help.”

“Why?” 

He held her hand. “Because you’re one of a kind. You’re special. And you’re…you’re in a position to learn how to help a lot of people.”

“Help people? Like, from bad guys?” She knew there were a lot of terrible people in Olathe. Crooks, criminals, killers. But, maybe there were nice people too, people stuck in holes beneath huts just like her. Buddy always enjoyed playing the hero in movies. Maybe she could do the same in real life.

There was also the fact someone was holding her hand. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d have this much contact with her uncles. With anyone. It felt like home.

“Sort of,” he stammered. “It would, it would be something to do. Keep you busy. Once you’re old enough.” 

“When do we go?”

“I don’t know. I’ve wanted to do something like this for a while, but never knew if... I have to figure some things out first. Just sit tight, alright? You’re already very good at it.”

Buddy’s mouth flattened. Sticky was usually good at jokes, but she didn’t find that very funny.

Sticky gently squeezed her hand. “This plan has to stay between us. Okay, Buddy? You can’t—”

“I know,” she said. “I won’t say anything.”

Buddy heard a low inhale behind her... 

Brad. 

Ice in her veins.

It was over. 

...An exhale. 

It was just Brad releasing a long sigh in his sleep.

Buddy had been so focused on bracing herself she nearly missed Sticky’s hand trembling in hers. His voice was barely a breath. “Okay. Goodnight, Buddy.”

Sticky went to withdraw his hand, but Buddy’s grip tightened.

It was foolish, childish. She was ten years old and very grown and above all this, but this was the longest conversation she’d had with anyone in months. She didn’t want this moment to become a memory, not yet.

“Tell me a story,” she said. “Please. Just one. I promise I’ll keep quiet but I just want to hear one more before the next time we can talk to each other.”

“...Sure,” he said, the slightest shake in his voice. “What about?”

“You said when I was old enough you would tell me more about Brad. Am I old enough?”

Sticky’s eyes darted between her and Brad. “Now?”

“...It’s my birthday?”

Sticky steadied his breathing, weighing something in his mind. “Sure… This is a story about a boy a bit older than you. His name was Dusty, and it was his very first karate tournament.”

The story was vaguely humorous. The boy named Dusty hadn’t won the tournament. But, he _had_ learned an important lesson about properly tying knots. Sticky held her hand from beginning to end.

The next day Buddy felt weightless and giddy. Having a secret was so deliciously exciting. She was getting out of here. She was going to _escape._

“You enjoy yesterday?” Brad said in response to seeing his daughter grinning like a maniac at thin air as he brought her food the next day.

“Huh?” She glanced up airily. “Yeah, yesterday was great.” 

Brad’s face softened. “Good, that’s good.” He handed her a thick, flat piece of jerky. 

Buddy tore it in half and rolled one of the strips into a squat cylinder before popping it into her mouth. A thought appeared in her mind.

_The four of us._

She hadn’t stopped to consider what that meant. 

Brad was difficult. He didn’t speak much, and when he did it was usually over something he disapproved of. Whenever he entered a room the pressure shot up like you’d been plunged a thousand feet underwater. He was the moody, unbendable arbiter of how much freedom and contact she was allowed from her uncles and the rest of the universe, the human wall behind every decision to make her world smaller and smaller. 

And yet, there was an incomprehensible pang of guilt in her. Her moments with Brad were going to be numbered from on. The thought had once filled her with exhilaration, but now there was a foreign twinge of melancholy. Brad was a constant source of grief, but he was a constant nonetheless. She didn’t know how she’d cope with one of the four pillars in her life being struck and gone forever. She would have to make this time with him count.

“Say, Brad.”

Brad was about to climb the rope up but stopped in surprise. “Hm?”

“What was Dusty like?”

Brad didn’t move. The rope hung limply in his hand.

“What?” he said.

“Your son, Dusty. You had one like Uncle Rick did before the Flash, right?”

Buddy wasn’t completely there for the next few moments. Her body was, but she wasn’t. 

Brad exploded. His face was a red eruption of ferocious animal force as his bellowing shouts shook her to her ribs. She was called an idiot. She was reminded she wasn’t supposed to ask questions.

Buddy didn’t understand what she'd done wrong. Brad didn’t understand she wasn’t there.

By the time she came to, Brad was flying up the rope. Her attempts to pull him back by his poncho were pathetic. Buddy’s sobs weren’t enough to block out the screaming match upstairs. 

Rick, Cheeks, and Sticky were gone. She heard Brad kick them out and the string of threats if he so much as saw them.

Buddy sobbed. Not just because she would never see her uncles again, nor because she’d doomed them to fending for themselves into the scorching and unknowable world of outside—but because she’d screwed up the one chance she had of leaving. She was going to rot here. 

Buddy was left alone for the whole day. 

The next morning, Buddy woke up to a bleeding sack of flesh being dumped into her room. It took her a few moments to realize it was a person. It was easier to pretend it wasn’t. 

She was handed a sword. 

She dried her tears and took it.

From now on there was no more reading, no more drawing. 

“It’s time you learn to defend yourself,” Brad said.

Training, training, training. Hours were no longer measured by meals or playing movies or dumb jokes, but by the five-hundred sprints back and forth across her room, the kata that left her limbs feeling like jelly, or climbing the long length of rope that was lowered as fast as she could climb until her hands bloomed fields of blisters.

Each day reduced her to a collapsed, sweating mess, fruitlessly wiping at the strands of hair plastered to her face. Hot exhaustion bounced around the room like an oven. 

“I can’t do it,” she panted.

Brad stood above her. “Only strength,” he said. “Strength is the only thing you can count on. Weakness means death. If you can’t be strong, Buddy, then you might as well lay down and die already. That what you want? You want to die?”

 _Why are you doing this to me?_ her mind screamed.

“No,” she muttered.

“I can’t hear—”

_“No!”_

Buddy couldn’t imagine what she could be preparing for that would kill her before Brad’s training did. Any cry of exertion, sharp gasp, or whimper she emitted was met with stern disapproval. She learned not to make a sound, to inhale as much stagnant air as possible, and keep everything in.

Each day would end with a spar with Brad. “Worst case scenario,” he called it. The goal was to keep away from him for as long as possible. Not to beat him, but just to stay away, to buy herself time. She lost as soon as she was pinned to the ground and Brad counted to three. Her blood would boil at his slow drawling count. It felt like he was mocking her.

Buddy could barely hold her own at the start. She was too exhausted from each day’s training to fend for herself. He’d grab her and pin her to the ground until her cheek was mashed against the dirt. 

“If this was real, Buddy, you’d be dead,” he’d say. He reeked of alcohol.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, be better. Again.”

Those moments were the closest she ever got to her father—correcting her stance, blocking her attacks, overpowering her completely. They were the only moments of human touch she was worthy of. She hated herself for how much she yearned for each flash of contact from the man that had taken everything from her, whose intractable truths and inflexible mantras infested every crevice of her mind. Her resentment, her anger, her self-loathing—when they spoke it was in Brad’s voice. 

But she was getting quicker, stronger. The bloody sponge in her head was absorbing violence with growing efficiency. She replayed their spars, assessing what she could have done better, optimizing every movement so she could win. 

Buddy's personal best in their end-of-day spars was staying away from him for a whole half hour. Ducking between his arms, rolling underneath his legs, leaping off walls. She could draw every detail of this hole with her eyes closed. Not even in her dreams could she escape this place, and she used that to her advantage.

When Brad finally pinned Buddy to the ground, it took him a moment before he could speak. A flame of pride warmed her chest to see him actually catching his breath. 

“...Good,” Brad concluded. 

For the first time, he offered her his hand, helped her up, and gave her a half-hearted pat on the shoulder. Buddy hated it, craved it, and hated how much she craved it.

Brad explained it was useless to just teach her martial arts. “The men out there are bigger and stronger than you. You wouldn’t stand a chance in hell.” Brad said it like it was fact, like he already thought so lowly of her. She festered with the urge to prove him wrong. 

She was handed a sword again.

Brad made good on his promise that the next time she fought a man he wouldn’t be tied up. Every few days, Brad would bring men into the hole, all in varying degrees of injury and confusion. They barely stood a chance, waking up bewildered and alone with a nocturnal little killer.

After each heap of flesh fell to the floor, died in the same spot where she ate and slept, she would look at her father and glare: _Satisfied yet? How many more, Brad?_

Those days were the quietest. After the man was killed, Brad ended the day early. Buddy cleaned the blood while Brad disappeared the body. Then they would then share a meal in silence.

“Nothing, uh, beats the real thing, huh,” Brad would say, scratching his balding scalp.

Buddy hated when he did this. His meagre attempts at conversation, pretending things were domestic and normal even though they weren’t. Even though he was the reason everything was ruined.

“I guess,” she would reply. 

She’d lost count of how many men she’d killed. When she tried to recall their faces, she couldn’t. They were like gnarled rocks obscured by ripples of red water. But, if she concentrated hard enough, held her breath and plunged into her memory, they’d all coalesce into a single face. Brad’s face. She couldn’t remember any other face but his.

Each day ended the same. Brad would take her sword, say goodnight, pull up the rope, cover the hole, and plunge her into darkness.

Buddy lay on her back breathing dead, stagnant air—unventilated and pungent with sweat. The room wasn’t hers anymore. It was a tomb she shared with the dozens of bodies whose throats she’d torn out. A memory stirred about ancient kings called pharaohs who were buried with their servants. Rick taught her that. She thought of grand chambers and golden boxes called sarcophaguses, and playing Indiana Jones with Cheeks. And Sticky...

She rolled to her side and squeezed her eyes shut. _Not tonight,_ she thought. Her body hurt enough. 

The earth was clammy against her cheek. The dirt would always soak up some of the blood she wasn’t fast enough to clean, and the coppery stench had nowhere to go but up her nostrils. 

Brad said the men he brought were horrible, evil scum—that there was no point feeling guilty for killing them. But they didn’t look evil as they stared at her with wide pleading eyes at the end of her sword. 

_If these men are evil,_ Buddy thought, _what does that make you, Brad?_

She couldn’t figure out to what end Brad was doing all this for. Was he just some loner that hated people? Bringing men for her to kill, one by one, until there was no one left on earth but the two of them? The thought terrified her. 

Buddy didn’t know how long it was since she’d last seen her uncles. Brad didn’t keep track of birthdays. She didn’t need to ask why. Cheeks used to keep count. And Buddy wasn’t allowed to speak about her uncles.

Sometimes she’d light a bottle lamp and raise it to the tallies on the dresser. The tallest one that had been marked, the one from her last birthday party, came up to her chin. Each tally represented a layer of childhood that had been peeled away. She stared at the outlines of her past selves and hated every single one of them for being so happy. They were idiots. 

She was _still_ an idiot. 

There was one moment where she could have made it out of here. Buddy had woken up, waiting for Brad to come down and begin training. Getting suspicious, she climbed up the dirt walls with no need for the rope. The irony that Brad’s training had made her strong enough to do the very thing he’d hate was not lost on her.

She peeked over the lip of the hole saw him. Brad was passed out in a nest of bottles and cyan pebbles she had never seen before. They were so blue and bright and pretty she felt the instinct to reach out and snatch a handful. 

But the doorway was right there.

She would replay the moment over and over again and scratch her scalp and neck in frustration. She should have run, looked for her uncles, escaped the rancid stench of that blood-soaked hole for good.

Instead she’d stepped out and _dawdled._ She’d never seen daybreak before. The horizon was an explosion of blooming warmth. The sky went on for so long. She was suffocated by its beauty. 

But of course.

Brad.

She never got a chance like that again. 

Brad’s attempt to mollify her was nothing short of humiliating. She could only go outside if she was wearing the hot stuffy mask he’d made her, hand swallowed in his paw as they walked around the flat plateau during early mornings. She’d gaze at the sky, the clouds, the boundless stone croppings. It all cruelly stretched out before her, like it knew she’d never be able to reach them.

They saw flowers sometimes. The first time they did, Brad plucked one from the earth. Its white petals spun as he rolled the tiny green stem between his thumb and forefinger. He caressed it with his gaze, contemplative.

“Here, you keep it.” He offered it to her. 

Buddy took it reluctantly. A memento from outside sounded nice. She could watch it grow each day, right from her room. The thought gave her a mote of hope.

When they returned home they put the flower in a bottle of water. But as the days wore on, Buddy noticed it starting to droop. She tried to ignore it, but it only became more shrivelled and limp until one day its withered bud fell to the floor.

“Why did it die?” Buddy said after training that day, staring at her warped reflection in the brown bottle the flower had lived in.

Brad took a long time to answer. “It can happen sometimes.”

Buddy dug her nails into the ground. Another one of Brad’s little lessons, his sharp little cruelties. She wasn’t getting out of here. And if she tried to, she couldn’t. He’d made it resoundingly clear that if she ever tried to run again, he would always find her. She didn’t want to see him make good on that threat. 

The only option left was to kill him. The thought would come to her sometimes. In moments where Buddy had a sword in her hands and Brad’s back was turned, it would whisper in her ear—ripe and enticing. But each time it happened, she’d freeze, the moment would pass, and her gut would wrench at her weakness.

Sometimes she worried Brad could read her mind. Maybe he knew she could never do it. Maybe he knew his daughter was weak and would never be strong enough to leave, let alone survive out there.

Alone in her room, Buddy shook the thought out of her head. No, that was ridiculous. If she couldn’t have the privacy of her own thoughts, she didn’t have anything at all.

She did something she hadn’t done in a while. She tried imagining—for old time’s sake. She left for the place where the air was fresh and clean. Where the sky was wide open and boundless. Where no one could stop her and she could leisurely roam as much as she pleased. And when she’d had her fill, she could come back to a good meal, a story, and sleep in someone’s safe embrace. And she would laugh, and she would play, and she would have so many friends…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy! This fic is borne out of my numerous frustrations with the ending of LISA the Joyful and is a very long-winded and meticulously plotted excuse for me to explore what I would have liked to happen. This is in no way me saying that I’m a better writer than Dingaling. Think of this as bearing witness to me playing in the space, motivated by a burning passion of giving Buddy Armstrong her rights. I'm just having fun here. And if you are too, feel free to let a gal know.
> 
> The quote at the beginning is from Dingaling himself and can be found on his tumblr blog here. https://dingalingboy.tumblr.com/post/129856421848/lisa-storytelling. It, really impacted me the first time I read it. Not only is it a fantastic storytelling guideline, but it’s also an extremely fascinating lens with which to view every single character in the LISA franchise through. You end up coming to some interesting conclusions, and it’s also a good litmus test on why some characters resonate with me more than others.
> 
> The intent of this chapter was for it to be as canon-compliant as possible, but there are gonna be a fair few setting/plot changes in this AU before it goes off the rails entirely. Those things will be explained in the notes of the next chapter, which is already in third draft stages! I’m hoping to have it out before university starts again, so stay tuned! (It will also not be this monstrously long. Christ.) 
> 
> Bajillion thanks to @Shpeeper for her extremely frank notes and supporting me through my mental descent.
> 
> I am a chatterbox - so please feel free to comment!
> 
>  **EDIT - 2/01/2021**  
>  A ton of thanks to @The_Idonian for her even franker notes and helping me iron out some grammar and prose issues that were bugging me. If you're re-reading this chapter and it feels a bit different from how you remember it—that's probably why.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here’s where we go a bit off the rails, folks! 
> 
> Just to be clear, these new tags are no slouch. Extra heavy content warnings for paedophilia, misogyny, discussion of rape, and depictions of violent flashbacks for this chapter.

_“Aren’t you bored?”_

_“No. I’m winning.”_

_“I want to play something else. I have UNO at home.”_

_“What?”_

_“UNO? It’s the card game where you match numbers and colors.”_

_“Sounds pretty shit.”_

_“Would you rather keep beating me at tic-tac-toe over and over?”_

_“Yes. I’m winning.”_

_“How_ do _you keep winning?”_

_“I’ve had time to practi… Fuck, what time is it?”_

_“Five thirty-eight.”_

_“Infomercial hour starts in twenty minutes.”_

_“Oh, alright. I’ll see you tomorrow?”_

_“Of course. It’s our tree.”_

_“Yeah… our tree.”_

* * *

Buddy’s breath hissed through her teeth in harsh pants. She gulped oven-hot gasps of air as she clambered to her feet. It felt like she was being cooked from the inside, but she was strong enough for it. The broken men at her feet were proof enough.

Just one more.

The details of how she’d gotten here were a blurry, blue slush. She remembered leaving the view of the stronghold, with its barbed wire and red, skewered skulls.

Then, an ambush. An old man on a tall rock face and a gloating mouth. Men surrounding her. The crack of a pill between her teeth.

She ascended. Leap. Thrust. Twist. They fell one by one. Any blow she wasn't fast enough to dodge failed to harm her, and when she did start to feel anything, she just took another pill. There was nothing but the taste of exhilaration and the sweet cyan absence of anything else. She climbed higher and higher, slashing through each man. She was winning. 

Then someone grabbed her arm. Her sword was ripped from her grasp and flung over the cliff. There was no fear, just an obvious conclusion. She followed it, and took the man with her.

It was a bad fall. The old man should have let go.

He was sitting slumped against the wall of rock. Chin tucked into his chest, his face was shadowed by strands of gray hair reaching his waist. 

Buddy turned, scanning the dark rock. Her sword was just a few feet away. She walked.

There was something funny in the rhythm of her step, but it could wait. She bent down and reached when she heard:

“It’s not that bad y’know.”

Buddy spun and thrust her blade in the direction of the voice. The man hadn’t moved from his spot, but he was looking at her. The corners of his mouth crinkled into a wet grin.

“Like Daddy used to say: ‘A lady’s first time is like a tetanus shot—a whole lotta fuss over just one prick.’” 

He threw back his head with a long, braying laugh.

Buddy flexed her fingers along the sword’s hilt. She stepped forward, scraping the end of the blade against the ground. Metal shrieked against stone like a monster sharpening its claws.

“I dunno if you know,” the man went on, “but a whole lot of men have gone through a _whooole_ lotta trouble just to meet you. All of this attention, with _no effort_ on your part, and it’s ‘cause you’re this world’s gift. It’s incredible. You’ll never be lonely, never go hungry—everybody wants ya. Aren’t you lucky, girly? You were _made_ to be loved.”

Hot coals of rage stoked in her belly. The edges of her vision were beginning to focus. She could feel her hair prickling her neck, the sweat dripping down her forehead, the dull pressure in her left ankle sharpening into a keen pain that stabbed with each step.

She knew the Joy in the little pouch between her two ponchos could offer her quick relief. But she didn’t want relief. She wanted him dead.

“I mean,” the man smirked, “it’s what you’re built for.”

Buddy stopped. She considered something.

There was a knee-high boulder next to her. She hobbled to it, stabbed her sword into the ground, and sat. Her breath came in shallow puffs as she leaned her weight on the sword’s pommel like a cane.

“Catching your breath?” the man asked .

“No. Sobering up,” Buddy said. She looked up and bestowed a milk-curdling glare. “I want to remember what it’s like to kill you.”

“Oh,” he clucked his tongue, “you are _cute.”_

Buddy’s mouth twisted. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

She’d set things right soon enough. Her mind was clarifying. She could assess.

His legs were wrong. Both shins had a new pair of joints. Must be why he hadn’t tried standing up. It looked like he wasn’t going to walk anytime soon. Good.

Then there was his flesh. It was like he was born with too much skin, the way it furrowed and sagged around his body. No one this old should have this much gumption.

And then was his face. There was something in his creased, vulture gaze. A foraging look in his eyes. Prying, picking, piecing. Like barely stifled hunger. 

Nothing she hadn’t seen before. She didn’t know what was more disgusting: that they were so obvious in their intentions, or that they made no effort to hide them.

“You think I’m dumb?” Buddy said. “You don’t think I know what you want from me?”

His mouth twitched. The grin remained, but there was a shift—though more from inconvenience rather than irritation. Altering strategy, correcting course.

She hated that.

“It’s the right thing to do.” His tone was less light, less inconsequential. “It all dies otherwise. You’re a good little girl. Don’t you wanna help people?”

“No.”

She wouldn’t have to listen to this bullshit much longer, she told herself. She just needed to wait a bit more, just enough for the fog to clear so she could concentrate. 

“Well,” he said. “That’s a shame. There goes humanity I guess.”

 _Fuck it,_ or she’d do it now.

Buddy stormed towards him, passing bruised and lifeless bodies, closing the distance in rapid stunted steps. 

“You’re not special,” she said. “It’s exactly the same no matter how you all say it. You’re not different, you’re not unique, _you’re NOT special.”_

She was above him now, steel justice in her hands. She would be the shadow blocking his last view of the sun, the blade that would snap the chord of his life, the sight of his final moments.

And still he grinned.

He was trapped, injured, vulnerable. But he wasn’t pleading, wasn’t cowering, wasn’t escaping. _He was grinning._

Rage pulsed in her ears. “What’s so funny?”

“That you think it ends here.”

Buddy stilled.

“We both know what this is. You can’t run forever. If it’s not me, it’ll be the next man, or the man after that, or the man after that.”

The abyss inside her stretched wide and dark and empty. Endless. Infinite. 

“I’m not the first... But I could be the last.”

Buddy’s eye throbbed, the one wrapped beneath layers of bandage. 

_Not the first._

“If you let it happen, everyone will leave you alone, girly.”

He was moving his hand.

The blade flew under his chin. 

He jerked to a stop.

“You really _do_ think I’m dumb,” Buddy spat.

She pressed the sabre and a tiny rivulet of blood began dribbling down his pale neck. 

The man’s grin dropped. Finally, a flash of panic in his eyes. “Fine, _fine, finefinefinefinefine_ —alRIGHT!” he screeched. “Could a poor old man have one final word? _Please?”_

She thought for a moment, then decided a word would do—the man was acting correctly.

“What.”

His eyes crinkled. “If I’d had my way,” he grinned, _“it would’ve come outta your nos—”_

Buddy tore the blade through his throat.

He slumped. Blood babbled down the grinning gash on his neck.

It was too good for him.

She stabbed again. And again. And again. Blood splattered like rain, flowed like flood, surged like ocean.

It still wasn’t enough.

She unseamed him—joints and vertebrae and sinew that had lived decades in marshy darkness, exposed to sunlight for the first time in their lives. Organs tumbled like overripe fruit. 

She was using her hands now.

She crushed, stomped, desecrated, defiled. Blue granite became dyed in all rouge shades of vermilion, crimson, and red, red, red, red, _red._

She only stopped when there was nothing left. 

She stepped back from the pile. She wiped the sweat from her brow with a trickling hand, anointing herself with a smear of blood.

There was no more man—only a pulped mess of violated anatomy.

Arms stained to the elbow, the gore was baking into a brown flakey layer of second skin. Her boots were drenched. Her poncho dripped. And the sun drank. It lapped up the puddling blood with an eager, steaming tongue.

She had never felt more clean.

But she was tired.

Buddy fished through the viscera and picked up her sword— _soaked_ —limped a few steps away, and leaned on the pommel again. She unclenched the knot of tension in her gut, the tautness of her jaw, and exhaled.

 _There._ Done. It had taken two of her three Joy pills, dozens of aches and pains gnawing for her attention, and a busted ankle—but she’d done it. ‘Not a chance in hell’ her ass. She’d killed an entire gang all by herself. No one could take that away from her, no one could hurt her, no one—

“Are you alright?”

Buddy jolted and looked up.

A red skull hung from a summit of black cloth resting on the shoulders of the largest man Buddy had ever seen.

Buddy gaped. It had to be a mirage from the heat, or a ghost. But there stood Rando, mystic and tall, strips of bandage wrapped around his broad chest and burly arms...

...arms he was using to balance himself as he very carefully stepped down the gravelly slope cutting around the side of the cliff.

“That was a very b-b... large fall. I wasn’t sure if you—” he sidestepped a loose rock that fell from his foot with a hushed _‘oh dear’_ “—if you were okay. I was worried I was too late.” He landed on firm ground, walked towards her while holding his abdomen, then stopped at a respectful distance. “I tried helping as b-be… as m-mu…” He sighed. “I hope I helped.”

Buddy could only blink. “...What?”

“The other ones,” he started pointing at the bodies on the ground, then thought better of it and withdrew his hand, “they were coming from b-be… the other side. I held them off as b-best I—”

“Shut up, wait.”

Buddy looked at the bodies. There were five of them—not counting the pile of gray hair and meat currently being swarmed by a moving blanket of flies—wearing the same green colors as the men she had fought during her ascent up the granite hill so she’d just assumed… But that wouldn’t make sense. She only started killing them as she was climbing up, right?

Buddy scrunched her face in thought. She’d only taken Joy a handful of times, but she had a basic grasp on what it did. For one, its effects were instantaneous. The first thing she would feel was this lovely, cool sensation—like being caressed by a chill breeze. Then, things would become more distant, arm's-length, easier to handle. It was good for fights. Pain just, wasn’t.

But then came the issue of perspective. While it honed her focus, it warped her vision. Everything that wasn’t directly in front of her fell into blurry, blue periphery—like looking at the world through the neck of a bottle. 

She looked up the skinny plateau. The only way up was climbing the shelves of rock ascending like giant’s steps behind the cliff, which were no doubt littered with bodies of gang-members she’d killed—by _herself,_ mind you, she thought to no one in particular. 

One way up, two ways down. Either descending the rocky path—Rando’s way. Or Buddy’s way, which...

Buddy traced the sheer fifteen-foot drop with her eye and winced. The old man had definitely borne the brunt of the fall. She was lucky to have left with just a twisted ankle. Or maybe it was karma.

She considered that—the possibility that this was one of those rare, cosmic moments when justice had been properly dispensed by the universe—and nearly smiled. But there were more pressing matters.

Buddy looked closer at the dead men. 

Their faces were beaten, but there were no cuts. Their throats were intact. 

She returned to Rando. His knuckles were raw and bruised.

She hadn’t noticed the extra men, which meant... 

Buddy would’ve been dead by now. Dead, if no one had been there to pick up her slack. 

_Weak,_ a deep gravelly voice reverberated in her mind.

Buddy’s grip tightened around the hilt of her sword, then fell limp. She closed her eye, exhaled, then looked at him. “I thought you were dead.”

“I... thought so too.” It was here that Buddy noticed how frail and completely unfitting Rando’s voice was compared to his mammoth stature. He cleared his throat. “It was… B-Buddy, right?”

The halting pronunciation of her name tugged her attention. _Buh-buh-buh-buh-buddy._ Some sounds caught in his lips and took a few moments to get out, like the word got stuck. She withheld the urge to ask about it. He wanted something from her—they always do, she thought—and she wanted to know what it was.

So she nodded.

Rando took a breath. His voice was hoarse and untuned, like an instrument that hadn’t been played in years. “I don’t think I got the chance to introduce… correctly.” He put a hand to his chest. “I’m Rando.”

Buddy squinted. “I knew that already.”

“A-ah, yes.” Rando averted his gaze, a touch embarrassed.

The silence dragged. Buddy squinted until her whole face was lined with skepticism. What was the point of an introduction? Rando was practically the most famous person alive.

And besides, they’d already met. For less than a minute, sure, but she’d been hearing stories about Rando for so many weeks it felt like longer. But then, those had just been stories.

What did Buddy know about Rando? He’d kept her away from Brad yesterday, that was one point towards him. He helped her kill a bunch of gang members she had missed— _irritating._ And there was also the cheery little fact that he hadn’t tried to rape her yet. Hurray.

Buddy kept her hand firm on her sword and waited.

“I, um—” Rando cleared his throat again “—I saw you fight up there, b-before you fell. You’re very good with that sword. Where did you learn all that?”

“Brad taught me.”

It was impossible to read the face behind Rando’s mask, but from the way his shoulders stilled, Buddy got the impression he was somehow surprised by that. 

“...Neither of us are in any condition to fight,” he said. “We need to find a safe p-place to rest.”

“Where?” Buddy said. “At the stronghold?” Buddy’s eye throbbed again. She didn’t want to go back there.

Rando hung his head, posture slack. “Word’s spreading about yesterday. There could be p-people expecting us. B-bad ones.” He raised his head back up. “There are caves up ahead we could try. Will you come?” He extended his hand.

Buddy looked at it, unmoving. She thought about Sticky, and the last days they spent together. Just the two of them, travelling east. She remembered whenever things felt hopeless because of the dangerous terrain, or because they’d made another narrow escape from bandits, or they’d just lost Rick—Sticky would tell her stories. Not stories about himself or her uncles or even Brad. But new stories about Rando—the fearless, powerful leader of the Rando Army. 

Sticky told her how Rando would take care of her. That she would never be afraid of anything ever again. That she could trust him.

Buddy trusted Sticky. And if Sticky had trusted Rando, she would trust him too.

Besides, she had nowhere else to go. She was a complete stranger to these parts. She wouldn’t make it by herself. She’d be—

_Weak._

—fine. She’d be just fine once she got her strength back. She’d get better, then figure out where to go from there.

“Okay.” Buddy sheathed her sword and stepped forward.

She gasped as her ankle screamed and the world pivoted on its axis.

Quick as a flash, Rando grabbed her wrist.

Buddy’s heart leapt to her throat. The screaming in her ankle was drowned out by the massive hand swallowing the end of her arm. A flaming icicle of terror impaled her stomach. It was a trap. This had all been an effort to lull her into a false sense of security and she’d fallen for it and now she was _trapped_ and she couldn’t reach for her sword with her off-hand she was going to die she—

“Whoopsie-daisy. That was close.” Rando righted Buddy to her feet. “There we go.” He let her go, took a knee, and put his hands palm-up behind his back. “Hop on, I can carry you.”

Buddy stood there, stunned. It was inconceivable that Rando couldn’t hear how loud her heart was pounding. Her skin burned with the memory of his hand around her arm, its calloused strength, how it would only take one strong grip for him to snap bone. Buddy understood that she was talking to the most powerful man in Olathe.

The most powerful man in Olathe who was offering her a piggyback ride.

Buddy sighed internally. It wasn’t that she had no choice; it would just be foolish to not take advantage of the opportunity in front of her. That was all.

Buddy wordlessly limped forward and climbed onto Rando’s shoulders. The cloth of his mask was extremely warm to the touch. Did he really wear this thing all day? She could also smell the faintest whiff of sea salt.

“Ready?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Rando held Buddy’s legs and stood up. Buddy’s stomach somersaulted as she soared upwards.

Buddy observed the view. She was closer to the sky, which she liked. Everything looked so small from up here. A memory stirred of when Brad used to carry her like this. She would press her hands against the ceiling of her room and feel enormous.

Brad. Too much happened yesterday. This morning, even. She shoved thoughts about a giant mass of flesh and its heaving whispers of a name that wasn’t hers out of her mind and focused on how tall she was. 

So, this is what power felt like. Rando must see the world from this angle every single day. How secure he must be in his strength and influence just by seeing everyone looking up at him. She liked the sound of that.

“Everything okay?” said Rando.

“Yeah,” Buddy said. “Just thinking about how I want to be this tall one day when I’m older.”

For some reason Rando chuckled at that.

“I’m not joking,” she said.

“I know, I know.”

“Then why’d you laugh?”

He was quiet for a moment. “I’m not sure.” 

Rando began to walk. Buddy held onto the horn on his mask and one of the spikes on his pauldron for balance. She wanted to kick his shoulder and demand what he’d meant by that, but she was distracted by the landscape: The flat-topped granite shelves stretching their necks to the sky, the tussocks of parched grass sprouting from the ground with admirable tenacity, the pair of crows cawing overhead. She shifted herself around and watched the twin silhouettes fly in the direction she and Rando had come from. A touch of wistfulness pulled at her soul.

As strange as this situation was, she couldn’t help the part of her that appreciated this, the chance to admire the land. For the first time in days, the weary, watchful part of her brain had permission to rest a bit. 

A part of her smothered by layers of time wished Rando could walk slower. Or that her ankle wasn’t hurt so she could walk herself and trace her fingers over the coarse rock, feel the dry grass against her skin, dig her fingernails into the crevices of sandy dirt. Dawdle.

But that was nothing but foolish, childish instinct. So she said nothing.

“You’re very different from what I imagined,” Rando said. “I’ve b-been expecting to see you for m… a lot of weeks now, and this whole time I’ve wondered what you were like.”

There it was again. Sometimes he started a word but would change course, like he decided he didn’t like the way he’d phrased something and avoided it. She’d noticed it a few times already.

“What _were_ you expecting?” Buddy said.

“Well, I don’t think it was a girl covered head to toe in... It isn’t yours, right?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so. Not from the way you were—” he searched for the words “—finishing the job.”

Buddy’s ears went hot. That moment had felt private. 

“He deserved it.”

“I see.” There was a touch of sadness in his voice. 

Buddy wrinkled her nose. She didn’t like being pitied, and she _certainly_ hoped Rando wasn’t extending sympathy for that dead sack of shit.

He couldn’t be judging her. It wouldn’t make sense. He was Lord Rando the great and powerful. If anyone understood when it was necessary to administer justice and conquer, it would be him. 

There was a word for people like this, a word screeching and howling in a soundproof box just out of her reach. But for some reason all she was coming up with was the word hippo.

“...I m-meant what I said yesterday,” Rando continued. “I know you’re strong. And I understand you can carry yourself well with a weapon, b-but—” Rando felt for something in the bag strapped behind his pants, then lifted a black bundle of cloth over his shoulder “—m-maybe, in future, you can avoid situations like that with this.” 

Buddy took the bundle. There was something hard in the center. She let the fabric spill away to reveal a horned red skull.

Buddy stared at the mask and thought of dead white flowers. Of dark fabric smothering her face. Of her hand wrapped in a manacle of muscle.

Of five pairs of leering eyes.

Still, Buddy felt a tiny flame of pride. She’d been called strong by Rando. Strength recognizes strength. It wasn’t the praise she was hoping for, but it was enough not to make her throw away the mask outright. 

That—and she had to admit it looked much cooler than her old one.

“I’ll think about it.” Buddy draped it over her lap.

The conversation lulled. There was no sound save for the thud of Rando’s boots and the occasional breath of hot air whistling through the stone plateaus. Buddy rubbed her eye as the rocking rhythm of his steps made her drowsy.

They passed by wooden posts matted with tangles of rusty barbed wire, spears and arrows skewered into the ground over stained, discolored patches of rock. They must’ve crossed the border of Rando Land a long time ago. This was the playground for Olathe’s violent, warmongering children.

She stroked the fabric of the skulled mask, scanning the horizon. She wouldn’t put it on. Buddy knew hiding behind a mask only did so much.

She thought about that night again. Weeks, maybe months ago, back when she and her uncles were travelling with those Rando soldiers. The night when Sticky shook her awake and whispered:

“Buddy. Bud, wake up. We’re leaving.”

Sticky explained how the three of them were going to travel ahead of the troops from now on. Travelling with Rando soldiers meant they were prone to draw attention from opportunistic gangs. Therefore, it had been decided that she, Sticky, and Rick would go ahead of the troops and leave tonight.

“It’ll get us to Rando faster anyway,” he insisted. 

Rick sat to the side, nodding in tight-lipped agreement.

No one mentioned when this had been decided, nor by who, but Buddy got the hint. The covert air reminded her of a certain birthday night from many years ago. She saw no reason to argue.

Buddy never liked the way those men looked at her anyway.

The five Rando soldiers that had led them so far were armed with carved weapons and spiked shoulder pads. They spoke curtly to Sticky, barely to Rick, and never to Buddy. The only times they got chatty was when they made camp, and it was only to each other. 

The men never spoke about Buddy. Their discussions were solely concerned on an entity called Duhgirl. Apparently, Duhgirl was a lot smaller than they’d expected. There was constant speculation about Duhgirl’s age. And it seemed like they thought Duhgirl wearing a mask meant she couldn’t see the looks they kept giving her.

It wasn’t outright hostility, but it felt worse somehow. It was a prickling, eager attention she had never felt before. 

Some looked despite themselves. Others openly stroked her with their eyes.

When Sticky first told her to wear the mask, Buddy threw a fit. This was her first chance to experience the world unrestricted, and now she was being told to put on the same mask Brad had forced on her. How quickly she changed her tune, however, once she’d felt the first indications of the soldiers’ devouring curiosity.

It was just novelty, she told herself. They’d get used to her. 

But the stares wouldn’t stop. She saw how the mask only made the wheels of their imagination spin faster. 

These men were supposed to keep her and her uncles safe. But all they’d done so far was make Buddy’s hand itch for the nearest unattended weapon and their exposed necks.

_Not the first._

So now it was just the three of them—her, Sticky, and Rick. Going out into the world with her uncles had been among her most coveted dreams. A mental indulgence spun in those lonely dark nights underground. But it wasn’t quite what she expected. For one, the constant looking over their shoulders was a big difference. Not to mention she’d always imagined them as four rather than three, and then soon enough, two.

Just her and Sticky, then. The years had changed him. Not just because he’d lost all his hair save for one determined cowlick on the center of his scalp, nor the new Rando colors he wore. He’d become something hardened, watchful—a far cry from the ‘Relaxed Uncle Sticky’ of her infancy. She only remembered him being this serious whenever he talked to Brad, but they would’ve been miles away from him by now. 

Still, Brad clogged their throats. He sat on the precipice of their tongues, unspoken of, yet acknowledged by their un-acknowledgement.

Nevertheless, no matter how hot the day or how steep the path, night always came. And with it, stories told by the flickering campfire about Sticky’s time working in the army and, of course, stories about Rando.

“I finally met him, Bud. Doesn’t talk much, but he’s a hell of a guy. Strong, kind—but most of all he’s fair. I remember there was an argument once between these two guys back at the stronghold. Something about a left shoe. They were fixing for a fight, but then Rando just, showed up. Walked up to them, didn’t say a word. Was all it took. They stopped, apologized to each other. And that’s the thing with Rando. He sets things _right._ Life here is chaos, Bud, but people don’t fight when he’s around. The guy’s gonna bring back society, really _change_ things. You’ll be safe with him.”

He talked a lot about Rando. She liked seeing him so certain and inspired about something for once. But sometimes, she wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince. It explained the sad droop in his mustache whenever she caught him looking at her. She’d ask what was wrong, and he’d always brush her off. Buddy would find out soon enough.

That was much later, though. Until then, it was nice seeing the cracks of hope shine through the hard exterior Sticky had cultivated. She would exercise her imagination conjuring vivid scenarios of what it would be like to meet Rando—the man whom Sticky insisted was the key, the ultimate answer who’d make this whole venture worth it.

So why did Buddy feel so… underwhelmed?

She stowed the mask away, returning her attention to Rando. She could hear his strained breathing between each step. Peeking over his shoulder, she saw the splotches of dark mauve flowering across his arms and abdomen.

When Brad had shambled up to them yesterday—a haggard, bleeding pincushion of skin—and Rando told her to run, she had assumed the worst. It looked like she wasn’t far from the truth.

The thought of Brad—that monster who would stop at nothing until he dragged her back into that hole—made her gut twist. The violence he was capable of with those hands, the drowning pleading in his eyes, the new bloated creature he’d become, the words crooned to her by a man who smiled with two rows of too many teeth who’d—

She wanted to stop feeling. To dam up the deluge of images threatening to spill over. She wanted...

Buddy snaked her hand under her poncho and felt the pouch tied around her neck. She could feel the surface of her last pill through the fabric, cool to the touch like a smooth river stone.

She breathed through her nose. No. She'd save it for something important. 

There was something on the horizon.

In the distance rose a giant stone structure nestled between pillars of rock. Buddy and Rando walked under the gaze of the monolith, the massive pool of shade protecting them from the late afternoon glare. The smooth rock face was filled top to bottom with names carved in jagged capital letters, like they’d been scrawled by some giant child in red crayon. 

“What is this?” Buddy said.

“This is the b… the line which separates East and West Olathe,” Rando said. “It’s called The List. It has the names of the m-major warlords who rule the territories around here.”

“So they’re in charge?”

“In a sense.” Rando kept his attention forward and continued walking, while Buddy leant back with her gaze glued to the giant edifice. 

“They’re listed in order from top to b-bottom,” he said. “It’s m-mostly a way for p-people to know which individuals to avoid if they can help…”

Rando trailed off and stopped as he heard Buddy muttering under her breath.

 _"Vee-gah Van Dam,”_ she murmured. _"Mister Bee-ay-yooh-tye… Beautiful.”_ She leaned back further, holding onto the horn on Rando’s head and craning her neck as she tried to get a better look at the names higher up. 

Rando caught the neck of his mask to stop the whole thing from slipping off. “Careful, you could fall.”

She knocked twice on Rando’s head. “Let me down, then. I can’t see.”

Rando hesitated for a moment, then knelt. Buddy carefully stepped down and shuffled up to the mural.

The letters were almost as tall as her. The bottom three names were slashed in half. Buddy ran her hands over the name at the very bottom. The high volume of letters was turning her brain into alphabet soup. “What happened to these ones?”

“Word was spreading that they’d b… that they were killed,” Rando said. “So others took it on themselves to scratch them off, I suppose. It started a little after p-people first started hearing about you.”

Buddy limped backwards, blocking the sun from her eye as she stepped out of the monolith’s shade to get a clearer view of the names at the top. 

It had been a while. She breathed in the familiar vowels, tasted the odd combinations of consonants. It was like these people had purposefully named themselves the most unpronounceable strings of letters to inflate how important they were, like _Dike Ma-Won,_ or _Sin-Dye Gallows,_ or _Big Lincolen…_

Buddy’s mouth closed as she saw the name at the very top. She’d expected it, but it was something else to actually see it there.

It was a short name. But that’s what made it so powerful. It was like it knew it didn’t need an intricate sequence of letters to impress its importance. It just _was._

_Rando._

“These people…” Buddy said, eye fixed on the very top of The List. “They’re in charge of everything, never bothered by anyone, right?”

Rando’s face was pointed at The List too, away from Buddy. “Generally, yes.”

Buddy glanced at Rando. She tilted her head—stared at him, his bandages, his bruises.

She slowly drew her sword from its sheath.

Rando’s head jerked towards the noise. “B-Buddy?”

Buddy aimed her sword towards her mark.

“I could kill you,” she said.

Rando remained very still, alert. “Why would you do that?”

“You’re weak, your army’s gone,” she said. “I _could_ do it.” 

The tip of her blade centered on a point in the air.

“You’re the most powerful man in Olathe.”

 _There._ She was sure that hidden under swathes of fabric lay a vulnerable windpipe wrapped in a tender layer of flesh. 

_“I could make people scared of me.”_

She hobbled forward. Despite the injured foot dragging behind her, it didn’t stop Rando from slowly raising his hands and shaking his head. 

“B-Buddy, no…” He took a step back.

Buddy shivered. She took another halting step forward, and to her delight Rando stepped back in turn.

Yes, _this_ was how it was meant to go.

“B-Buddy.” Rando spoke like he was talking to a large, frothing animal. “I don’t want to fight.”

“Because you’re scared of me?” She felt big. If she could put this feeling into a pill she’d swallow it by the fistful.

“B-Because you’re _hurt.”_

The feeling popped. Gone.

_Weak._

Buddy’s expression darkened. “You don’t think I can do it.”

She grit her teeth and limped forward.

Rando’s back hit the monolith.The horizontal slashes across the three bottom names bisected his shins, chest, and neck.

“You all die the same, you know,” Buddy said. “It’s just one smooth slice. I _can_ kill you. I can! I’ll kill you, I’ll kill everyone on that list, and I’ll kill anyone who tries to get in my way. Then...” She searched for the words to express the fury in her heart, the unfairness of it all, the need to put things right.

“...Then?” Rando said uneasily.

Buddy’s eye shone with new clarity. “I’ll rule Olathe. I’ll change everything. Then they’ll know. They’ll know what happens when they try to fuck with me.” It felt so good to swear.

Rando said nothing.

Buddy’s shoulders tensed. He was bigger than her. Much, much, bigger. But she knew once she took the last little pill in her pouch, she would have the advantage. She’d take it when she needed the boost of energy. 

She held her ground, restless with anticipation.

Rando made no movement save for the shaken rise and fall of his chest.

“Are you scared of me?” Buddy demanded.

“I… P-Please don’t do this.”

The most powerful man in Olathe was begging for his life. Better.

 _Don’t let it go to your head,_ her mind countered, _he’s just waiting for you to let your guard down._

Sweat glided down her neck. “I’m not falling for that. Fight me head on!”

 _“No.”_ Rando said in a voice that sounded more faltering than threatening.

Buddy stood, dumbfounded. The shock dissolved into confusion, then anger.

“What is wrong with you?” she yelled. “How the hell did you make it to the top of The List acting like this?”

“I didn’t get there b-by fighting.”

“That’s a lie. That’s not how any of this works. Stop lying!”

“I… Listen, I swear I just want to keep you safe. Will killing m-me m… _turn_ you happy?”

“Yes! It will! It’ll make everyone leave me alone! It’s the only way they understand. _Last warning!”_

Buddy wasn’t sure exactly what she was warning him _of,_ but what she did know was that she was sick of him acting like she wasn’t worth the fight, sick of his pretending that power wasn’t settled through strength and strength alone.

She took another shuffling step. She was less than a yard away now.

“You don’t want to do this,” Rando said.

“Shut up.”

“P-Please.”

_“Why?”_

“B-Because I can help you.”

Buddy stopped.

Rando took a shuddering breath. “If you want to rule Olathe, if you just want everyone to leave you alone, if that’s all you want, then fine. I’ll help you. I know where all the warlords are. I can lead you to them.” 

Buddy ground her teeth. Did everyone in Olathe think she was an idiot? 

“How do I know you aren’t trying to kill me?”

“B-Because… b-because you already have.”

Rando went down on his knees. From this angle the tip of her sword was easily level with his neck. 

He spoke slowly, as if measuring the worth of each word before it was spoken aloud. “B-Buddy Armstrong. From this m-moment on, I declare m-myself dead. I’ll take you to the warlords, help you kill them, and when you’ve gotten everyone on The List, gotten everything you wanted and no one wants to hurt you anymore. I’ll… I’ll b-bear my throat to you.”

He lifted the flap of fabric below his mask to reveal an exposed neck and the bottom of a scarred chin.

“No fuss. No fight… One smooth slice. Just like you said.”

The tip of Buddy’s sword wavered. She readjusted her grip. “Why. Why would you do that?” 

Rando let the black cloth fall from his hand as he looked at the ground. “I don’t think I can kill you," he said softly. "Not even to save m-myself. You’re too important. Which m-means, I’m dead by default, right?” He raised his head, hollow sockets gazing into her. “So, if I’m no longer alive, I can at least b-be useful, can’t I?”

Buddy stared. He was inches away from the edge of her sword. She looked left and right, waiting for the inevitable ambush or practical joke. But, nothing. It was just him and her.

She didn’t know what scared her more: that he was a terrific liar, or telling the complete truth.

Still, there wasn't much difference between him dying now or dying later. Inevitability was on her side for once.

“Fine.” Buddy sheathed her sword. “I won’t kill you, yet. But I will.”

Rando nodded. “You will.”

The corner of her mouth quirked downwards. He was too accepting, too consenting to it.

Buddy crossed her arms. “So you promise to do whatever I say?”

“To the b-best of my ability.”

Buddy glared. 

Rando inclined his head humbly. “Yes, B-Buddy, I will. P-Promise.” 

Buddy closed her eye and nodded. “Good,” she said. “I want you to throw me.” 

“...Excuse me?” 

“You’re strong. I want you to throw me. Up there.” She pointed to the top of The List.

Rando followed her finger, then looked back at her. 

“B-But your, um. Your foot.” 

“You better not drop me then. Now—” She raised her arms with an air of _‘I’m waiting.’_

With no further protest, Rando gingerly picked her up, balancing her back and legs on both hands. 

Rando raised her up and down, testing her weight. Then did a few light throws in the air. The rock face loomed over them. It looked three stories, at least. Buddy kept her hand clasped around the hilt of her sword, gaze trained on the top of The List, playing the action in her mind.

“One…”

Buddy braced herself.

“...two…”

A sharp inhale. 

Then.

She soared up, up, up with breath-snatching speed. Wind rushed through Buddy’s hair and ears. The speed wrung a tear out of her eyeball, but she didn’t let it sway her aim.

Time slowed. The throw had been superb. Just before she ran out of momentum, in a perfect arc, her sword shot out from its scabbard and slashed _Rando_ in half.

There was a moment where she stopped. A peaceful moment at the zenith where her body was suspended and still, as if gravity was deciding what to do with her. Her mind’s eye inscribed something in the rock.

 _Buddy,_ written in bold uppercase at the very top, all the names below scratched off like tallies in a childhood dresser. One horizontal line to warn Olathe. To let every man know the new height she’d reached. She’d show them. She was going to be _big._

She fell.

She didn’t think about how foolish she was. How the ground was hurtling towards her at breakneck speed. How Rando could just take one step back and watch her head crack open like an egg. How she was just one person, one kid, one girl.

She was wrapped in the bliss of being in the air, of the wind whistling through her ears, of her hair fluttering like bird-black feathers, of the outline of her path to freedom being just at her fingertips. 

Rando caught her. 

Buddy gasped as the rush of air left her and her stomach lurched to position. She looked up at the two inscrutable holes of Rando’s mask beholding her, and stared right back. There was a quiet telepathy. A silent comprehension between them which understood: No turning back.

“...Let’s find those caves,” Rando said.

* * *

They found shelter just as the capricious sun decided to disappear into the night. Buddy was busy rubbing the last of the crusted blood off her hands and arms with a sophisticated combination of fingernails and spit. It was something to do as Rando finished tending to the small fire crackling and bouncing orange light against the walls of the cave.

Buddy frowned as she regarded her ankle. She felt like a clipped bird.

She jerked her head away as Rando appeared beside her. “Here.” He produced a cloth sack and placed it in front of her. Then, he returned to his spot in front of the fire and pulled out a cloth bundle of his own.

Buddy stared. She couldn’t help examining Rando’s every move, studying each gesture. For someone so large he moved so quietly, like he didn’t like drawing attention to himself. Odd. She was still trying to disassemble the vow he’d made to her earlier today. She couldn’t understand what he got out of helping her. She liked to think she was pretty scary, but she wasn’t an idiot. He could have killed her if he wanted. The obvious imbalance of strength nagged at her.

Buddy turned her attention to the burlap sack in front of her. Rando’s skull insignia was stitched at the side, the same mark she’d seen painted on cave walls and buildings that had led her and her uncles closer and closer to Rando Land.

She undid the string and opened it. Inside were shredded pieces of jerky, a large amount of flat tan-colored pebble-looking things, and a bunch of bulbous shapes that perplexed her.

Rando clocked her confusion. “It’s nicer to cook these into a soup, however I don’t have an um, p-pot. Sorry.”

Buddy scrutinized the contents of the bag. “What’s this?” She pulled out a hard orange cylinder.

“That’s a carrot.”

Buddy stared at him blankly.

“...A vegetable."

She continued to stare.

“Oh. Jesus. They’re um, they’re like p-plants you can eat. They’re good for you, m-make you strong.”

Buddy’s eyebrows flicked up. She weighed the dried carrot in her hand before biting into it from the side of her mouth. She looked at the ceiling as she munched. It didn’t feel as fast-acting as Joy, but if this was how Rando had grown muscles that large it couldn’t be all bad.

“My uncles talked about these I think,” she chewed, savoring the strange sweetness, “but they said they were pretty extinct. Something about needing seeds and not enough water.”

“Yes, well b-back at the stronghold we had a garden. We’d b-boil seawater and capture the evaporation for a veggie patch. One of the m-men, Spice Simmons, he used to teach b-biology. He explained that while the soil was quite p-poor, it could b-be improved if we reactivated it with some water, added carbon through b-burying ash from the wood we b-burned, and other, uh, human m-material. We even used seaweed b-because it's actually quite remarkable at retaining m-moistur...” 

Rando realized he was being stared at.

“Do you always talk like that?” Buddy said.

Rando stilled, and Buddy immediately recognized she’d said the wrong thing. Her hands itched for the hilt of her sword.

“Yes. I’ve talked like this since I was very young,” Rando said plainly.

“Huh,” Buddy responded. The admission stirred something in her mind, but it was lost in the sea of relief from the fact she hadn’t been yelled at. She almost felt silly for wanting to reach for her sword. Almost. 

“Is that why you don’t like talking?” she said.

Rando raised his shoulders defensively. “Is it obvious?”

Buddy squinted. This man cowered and flinched at every little thing. She hadn’t even threatened him that time. 

“It’s just, that’s what Sticky told me, that you didn’t talk,” she said. “He told me all sorts of stories he’d heard about you. Like, that you were strong enough to break boulders in half, or punched so fast your fists catch go on fire, or could stop a whole army on its tracks with a single word.” It felt nice to recite the words like Sticky had said them. “But, I guess they were just stories. Everyone sounded pretty surprised when you… well, you know.”

Memories of yesterday curled in wisps of smoke. The frail, dusty voice that spoke from Rando’s mask. The wave of gasps from his army at hearing him speak for the first time. Brad trudging forward with the wrath of a one-man militia, an unstoppable force leaving nothing but carnage in his wake. Remembering the smarting bruise on her cheek where he’d sent her flying across the room hours earlier. The three silver claws glittering like rubies beneath the sun.

Buddy swallowed. She wasn’t in the mood to think about it.

“Do you remember him?” she said, scratching her shoulder. “Sticky?”

Rando nodded. “Sticky Angoneli, given name Tony, b-between jobs b-before the Flash happened,” he recited. “He was the one who first told me about you. He said he’d spent nearly four years working his way up the Rando Army just so he could speak with m-me.”

“Four years…” Buddy murmured, then her eye widened. “So you knew Uncle Cheeks?”

“I never spoke with him personally, though I knew Rick Weeks and Cheeks Gaywood were Sticky’s dependents, yes. Do… do you know what happened to them?”

Buddy’s face fell. “We lost Rick on the way here. Sticky made me wait in a cave so he could go looking for him. Then I got caught by Brad, then caught by… other people.” The left side of her chest ached. “I never saw either of them again.”

“They could still b-be out there. And what about Cheeks?”

“Cheeks…” her eye flicked to the spiked pauldron on Rando’s shoulder “...isn’t. And I don’t think Rick made it out.” Rick was never much of a fighter. And she hadn’t liked the look in Brad’s eye when she asked him where he was. Which only left Sticky. But.

Buddy had no doubt that her uncles were gone. Brad had made it his mission to take everything from her. It was like he hated every father figure that wasn’t him. Even though she would never know what happened to Cheeks and Rick, after she saw what he did to poor Marty…

Buddy shook her head. “They’re dead. I just know it.” She reached into the bag of rations and ate the first thing her hand wrapped around.

The air of finality had been communicated, and they both ate in silence.

Buddy savored the strange food: Green fibrous things that looked like miniature trees, pale chopped disks with seeds in the middle, round beige lumps with dotted skin. They were quite dry, but it was nothing a few sips of Cocola Cola couldn’t fix. She chewed, swallowed, and noted with interest how Rando would lift the cloth at the bottom of his mask into which he’d disappear morsels of food. She wondered what he looked like under there.

Rando put aside his bundle. He’d finished the whole thing while Buddy was only a quarter of the way through.

“Could I ask you another question?” he said.

“Eah?” Buddy said through a white bumpy thing she was grinding through.

“What happened to your eye?”

Buddy stopped, then mentally swore for being so obvious. She downed the vegetable with the last of her soda. “It’s nothing.”

“How long ago did it happen?”

“Why do you care?”

“Did you disinfect it?”

Buddy crossed her arms. She knew that it had taken layers and layers of bandage to fully stop the bleeding, that the three jagged grooves felt like angry lines of fire, and the injury throbbed whenever she walked—but she was sure it was fine. The Joy she took last night had helped her fall asleep. Surely that was enough.

In the absence of a response, Rando got out his bag and pulled out a bottle of whiskey. In one swift motion he tore a strip of cloth from the fabric around his neck. “I’m not going to p-pour anything in. I’m just worried about the scarring. I’d like to clean it a little, just to b-be sure.”

Buddy shifted backwards.

Rando spoke gently. “B-Buddy, it could get infected and make you very sick and you could die. Could I p-please see it?”

Buddy glowered at the floor. “Fine.”

“Okay. I’m coming forward now.”

Rando may have had the bulk of an ox, but he carried himself with the humility of a mouse as he stepped almost apologetically over to her.

He knelt with the bottle in one hand and the cloth in the other. “Is it okay if I?—” He indicated towards the wrappings around her face.

“I’ll do it.” Buddy undid the knot behind her head. The off-colored bandages fell to the floor.

The side of Buddy’s face was raked with three deep trenches that clipped from the side of her nostril and disappeared into her hairline. The skin around it was inflamed and tender. The eyelid was closed, but deflated.

“Is it bad?” Buddy asked.

Rando’s expression was unreadable through his mask, but the slight pause in his hands told her everything.

“...It’s good that I got to it now.” He doused the cloth with alcohol. “This will sting a little.”

Rando brought the soaked cloth to her wound. Buddy jerked back at the poker-hot pain. She glared at him.

“You can squeeze my hand if you like,” Rando said.

“I’m not a fucking baby. Just do it.”

Rando brought the cloth to her face again. Buddy chomped on her tongue, hoping the familiar pain would be enough to distract her from the stinging cloth, but her head kept jerking back. She tried screwing her working eye shut, but couldn’t help the reflexive flinching each time the cloth touched her face, making Rando miss and smear alcohol all over forehead.

Rando exhaled. “Try to hold still.”

A large hand gently grasped the back of Buddy’s head.

She froze.

_It sounded like tearing a piece of paper in half over and over again it was like_

His hand was an iron wall wrapped in skin. She knew no matter how hard she pushed it wouldn’t budge. Her heart felt like—

_scooping jelly out of a cup except she wasn’t the spoon HE was she was just_

—a frightened bird buffeting against her ribcage. A distant voice told her she was doing a great job but it was too soft and too far away. She was—

_the cup the vessel something to be taken from to be made emptier and emptier and_

—alone. She was alone and no one was ever going to help her she was trapped she was underground and—

_excavated until he reached her very core until those three slick metal fingers dug deeper and deeper and_

Buddy felt the slightest graze of a thumb against the nape of her neck.

“DON’T TOUCH ME!”

Buddy smacked Rando’s arm away. The bottle flew and shattered against the ground. Alcohol darkened the earth like a bleeding wound.

Buddy snatched the damp rag from Rando’s fingers. _“I’ll do it myself.”_ She half-stomped, half-limped to the other side of the cave, dropped to her knees, and pushed the rag into her eye.

She bit back the traitorous whimper that nearly escaped her, swallowed with the half-sob strangling her throat.

She pushed hard, searing away the memory, cauterizing it from her mind. It was just the fumes making her eye water, nothing else. Buddy didn’t stop until her face was numb with pain and things in the past stayed in the past where they belonged.

She threw the rag to the floor. “There. Done.” She sat down, hugged her legs to her chest, and pressed her forehead to her knees so she could be in the dark.

After a while, Rando, unmoved from where he’d been sitting, spoke. “I’m sorry. I just want to help you. I know it hurts, b-but you’re too important to get sick or injured. Too m-much depends on your survival.”

“I _know.”_ The emphasis was one of acknowledgement, not concurrence.

“I just…” He sighed. “This place used to be so hopeless b-before you came... I want peace. I’m sick of all this fighting, this b-bloodshed. And I truly think you’re the answer. You can fix everything. The whole world has hope now, b-because— I b-believe that, one day, you alone will have the ability to save humanity.”

Buddy, her back still turned to Rando, lifted her head. “That’s such bullshit.”

“...Sorry?”

“What about _humanity_ is worth saving?” 

Rando emitted a quick breath, like he was politely acknowledging an inappropriate joke. The stretch of silence said otherwise.

“It’s always the same thing,” Buddy said. “That I’m vital. That if I die before I have sex and make babies mankind dies with me. That it’s what I’m made for.” She remembered that old man’s braying laugh and scowled. “Well what if I don’t want to be, huh? What difference does it make, you were all gonna die anyway. And thank God for that. I look at every single one of you and don’t see a single thing worth saving.”

Rando flinched at her last few words. He scratched the bottom of his wrist. “I understand that Olathe isn’t a… is not safe, and I understand you’ve had to go through the worst of it. B-But you can’t let the actions of a few individuals—”

Buddy spun around and glared at him.

“Do you want to know why I lost this?” Buddy pointed at her socket.

And she knew it was a socket, she knew because the eye was wide open and all she could see out of it was empty, utter black.

“Do you? Really?” she said.

Rando was still for a few moments, before inclining his head in a stiff nod.

“The man who did this to me didn’t do it because he was starving and I had food, or because he was scared of me and I was a threat,” she said. “He did this to me because I was a girl.” 

Rando wrung his hands. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t m-mean to—”

“I’m not fucking done.”

Rando gave a surprised inhale, but said nothing more.

Buddy breathed. “I’m the last girl in a world of thousands of men. Sticky had to explain what that meant. He was crying, you know. _He_ was the one crying. _I_ had to comfort _him._ How the _fuck_ do you think I felt?”

Buddy’s hands trembled as she bunched the end of her poncho in a white-knuckled grip. “It makes me so _mad._ This is going to be the rest of my life. So don’t talk to me about ‘a few individuals.’ A few individuals are why I don’t have an eye, why my uncles are dead, why I’ll spend my entire life running. I know it’s not everybody but it’s enough! They take everything! They’ll take and take and take until there’s nothing left!

“And you know what’s worse?” Buddy snarled. “What’s worse is the people who say it’s for a good cause. It’s all an excuse. People tell me I belong to the world, to the future— _I don’t belong to anyone!”_

But Sticky thought she did in the end, hadn’t he? Despite understanding how terrible it was, despite knowing she’d be safer if they left those soldiers, despite the fact his descriptions of what Buddy would have to do and how her body would change were enough to make him weep—the duty hanging over her was made clear.

And Buddy would never forgive him for that.

But was the alternative any better? That subterranean maw that stank of death— _Brad._

No, it wasn’t. It _couldn’t._

 _“I don’t belong to anyone,"_ she repeated.

She was crouched by this point, fists pulling at her hair.

It wasn’t just those two; it was all of them. Men didn’t _tell_ her her body wasn’t hers. They skirted around it with every well-intentioned explanation, hinted at it with every sideways glance or outright stare, convinced her with every snatch, bruise, and scar.

The architecture of her confinement was shaped like a body. A body which belonged to humanity, the world, the future—to everyone except her.

“They won’t stop. They’ll never, ever stop.” Buddy dropped her hands. Her expression changed. “They just laugh at me.”

“What?” Rando said.

“That old man. He laughed at me. He knew he was about to die, but he _wasn’t scared of me.”_ She gripped the dirt under her fingers, felt the dust cover every crack of skin, the grit pierce the tender flesh beneath her nails.

Buddy was quiet, but it was clear from the electric tension that she wasn’t done.

Rando’s soft, cracked voice broke the silence. “...What do you want, B-Buddy?”

“I want them dead. I want them to beg and I want everyone to know I did it. I want to step outside without a _stupid_ mask because someone might rape me.” Buddy slouched. “I’m so tired. I don’t know if I’m meant to be this exhausted. It doesn’t feel normal.” She shook her head. “But, it’s not going to stop. Not unless I make them. They need to be _afraid._ They need to know that if they think they can destroy me, I’ll destroy them right back. Then everyone will just _leave me alone...”_ Buddy’s voice went quiet, cradling the thought.

Rando took a moment before he spoke. “If… If everything is as b-bad as you say, wouldn’t it b-be safer to leave? Go somewhere else? Find a place to—”

“No! I’m not hiding. I’m not hiding ever, ever again. Hiding isn’t living. Hiding is just waiting to die.”

Rando was quiet for a long time. Unreadable.

Buddy’s fingers twitched. _He’s going to laugh,_ she thought. _And then he’s going to kill me._

Rando sighed. Buddy held her breath.

“I’m sorry,” Rando said. “That’s all I can really say. I’m sorry you went through that. I’m sorry you were hurt. I’m sorry no one was there to p… to help you.”

Buddy’s chest deflated. She’d been expecting something different, something that would match the impassioned burning in her muscles, not this dousing pity.

“I am dead,” said Rando. “And I promised I’d help you. I’ll take you to the warlords, I won’t stop you from killing them. That won’t change. Could I ask just one favour?”

“What,” she said, nursing her disappointment.

“I’d like to see a few p-places before I die,” he said. “Really die, I mean. They’ll be on the way. Look.”

Rando pinched a sharp piece of gravel and used it to scratch shapes into the ground. Buddy stepped towards the sprawling map at Rando’s feet as he drew a complex set of trails cutting through arrow heads representing cliffs and mountains.

“Right now, we’re here.” Rando scratched a circle on the ground. “Through these cliffs there’s a desert. Lardy Hernandez is the closest. He has trucks and supplies.” He paused. “Trucks, um, trucks are b-big—”

“I know what trucks are.”

“Yes. Right. Well, we go there first. See Lardy.” He drew an X in the middle of the desert. “Vega Van Dam is usually a few days by foot, though with a truck we can get there in a day and a half.” He drew another X on the far side of the map within a cluster of vertical rectangles. 

Buddy looked at the distance between the two X’s with distaste. “Why are they all so far away from each other?”

“Their territories are very important to them. And… I don’t think they’d be nice neighbors,” he said. “So, b-before we see Vega, I’d like to stop here.” He marked a circle in the middle of the concave arc connecting the pair of warlords on their disparate sides of the map. “It’s on the way, and we can get fuel and supplies while we’re there.”

“What is it?”

“It’s… I don’t know if I can explain it quite well. B-But I’d just like to go there.”

He caught Buddy’s withering stare.

“I swear this isn’t a trap,” Rando started. “I won’t—”

Her sword flew from its sheath. It sliced through the fabric around Rando’s neck and leapt right under his chin.

The two stayed frozen. Statue-still. 

Then, Rando sighed, head drooping forward like a withered leaf on a dried plant. The picture of resignation.

Moments, minutes, hours—who could say how much time passed as Buddy decided.

Buddy lifted the blade and stepped back. Rando came to life slowly. He cupped his neck expecting to feel a large gash, but his fingers looked surprised to feel only a tiny nick of flesh.

“We’ll leave when my ankle gets better and your injuries heal,” Buddy said. “I’m going to sleep now.” 

She picked up the bandages from the floor and wrapped them over her face. Then, she shuffled to the other side of the campfire and lay down, sword gripped in her hand.

Rando nodded. “I’ll… keep watch, then.” He turned in his seat to face the entrance.

Buddy didn’t know how long she spent awake staring at Rando’s back. Thoughts revolved in her mind like trash bags circling the surface of an oily lake. 

She thought she’d feel better now that she knew Rando would keep his promise. That when the time came, he wouldn’t fight back. But she couldn’t understand why she wasn’t satisfied.

Maybe it was because she’d _wanted_ him to fight back. Maybe it was because she didn’t know what him not doing so meant.

Or maybe it was because she couldn’t comprehend how someone so docile and willing to turn the other cheek got his name carved at the top of The List.

Rando was someone who had been built in her mind for days and weeks and years of stories as someone who was strong, someone who set things _right._ She thought he’d have the same burning coal of justice in his chest that she did. But the disparity between these two Randos, the one in her head and the one in the flesh, worried her. If that part wasn’t real, then what else was he lying about? 

Who was this man eclipsed by every single one of his stories? This man with so much strength who refused to use it? What did he _want_ from her?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So fun fact, I originally wanted what is now Chapter 1 to be a brief, self-contained flashback that would transition into the media-res action and the inciting incident of what is now Chapter 2. This clearly did not happen. But hey! We’re here now!
> 
> Rando’s name being at the top of The List wasn’t the first thing I came up with when I was outlining this Joyful fix-it, but as soon as it was pitched to me by @shpeeper, all of the pieces started to fall together.
> 
> Also OKAY. I promised I’d explain the main differences in this AU last chapter so there wouldn’t be too much confusion or misplaced expectations. I’ve changed a lot so I thought I’d list them in cascading order of relevance just to make sure we’re on the same page about the universe changes in ASAL-verse.
> 
> \- Dr Yado is not a prominent member of the plot. He created Joy, is responsible for the Joy mutants, but he was dispatched quite promptly after the Flash. Do not worry about him. As far as ASAL is concerned, he’s not important.  
> \- This means that he never got to controlling any of the Joy mutants. So, no help from Sweetheart to cut the Bolo fight short. Buddy had to do that allll by herself. Rando took a little longer to get there in this version of the story for the sake of drama. Surely I’m allowed a bit of that.  
> \- So since we have no Bolo, that also means the ‘barbed wire’ scene in Joyful can’t happen, which means there’s no point in the Unics, as their subplot has become dramatically moot. Part of the tension of that scene relies on Rando trying to reveal to Buddy how he’d lied to her, but with no Bolo, the ‘barbed wire’ scene can’t exist, ergo, there’s no point in Rando’s lie, nor the Unics existing. All gone.  
> \- The consequences of the Flash were a bit different in ASAL.  
> \- Buddy’s origins have been changed.  
> \- Oh, and no Mrs Yado either. In this AU she had a very successful career in science and was never roped into Yado’s plot. However, she will also not be relevant in this AU. Sorry :(
> 
> Besides these key things or anything else I contradicted in canon due to how I’ve written these chapters so far, most of everything in Painful and the initial moments of Joyful are pretty much the same. 
> 
> So, research! I’ve been doing a lot of reading on stuttering.
> 
> I read the book _Out With It_ by Katherine Preston, scrolled through a lot of the r/Stutter reddit, listened through some episodes of the podcast StutterTalk, and read some articles. These two were especially helpful for my initial plunge into the topic, but I encourage readers to do more of their own reading if the topic interests them.
> 
> https://writefortheking.wordpress.com/2017/07/10/how-to-write-stuttering/  
> https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/01/joe-biden-stutter-profile/602401/
> 
> The biggest thing I learned is that stuttering is immensely different for different people, and I definitely wouldn’t want anyone passing off my take on Rando’s stutter as the end-all be-all on depicting real-life stuttering, let alone as the ‘correct’ way to write Rando’s voice. (God, could you imagine?) All I did was read some stuff because I wanted a consistent set of rules to anchor how I wrote Rando’s voice for this fic.
> 
> One thing that leapt out in my research is that stutterers tend to have trouble pronouncing certain groups of words. I looked over Rando’s dialogue and saw it’s a bit inconsistent on what letters he struggles with. He has difficulty with F’s in canon, but other than that it’s a bit scattershot. So for ASAL!Rando, I chose to give him trouble with specific words that are pronounced with the front of the mouth. B, M, and P. (And also because I’m evil. If I had to suffer through all of these damn B-names—Brad, Buddy, Buzzo—then so should someone else.)
> 
> No firm deadline on when the next chapter is coming as university is peeking around the corner, but hey it’s something I’ll keep chipping away at. We’ve got 12 more chapters and a WHOLE lotta plot to get through. In the meantime, I blabber a lot about the LISA games on my tumblr under the tag “#lisa meta.” I have a Sticky Angoneli essay I’m overdue on. Feel free to talk with me about stuff there.
> 
> Speaking of next chapter, as much as I’ve harped on about the importance of more LISA-content focalised through Buddy’s POV, I think there’s another oft-neglected character in fandom I’m very interested in exploring. Stay tuned for next chapter where we sit in the shoes of one of Olathe’s strongest and saddest men.
> 
> Thank you as always to @shpeeper for being my content/beta reader and making me feel less crazy, and colossal thanks to @The_Idonian for gamma reading and hearing my attempts to explain the twelve layers of ridiculous dramatic irony I have going on.
> 
> Comments go a long way. Feel free to yell at me.


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